


shouting into the cliffs without an echo

by plinys



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: After Effects Of Trauma, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Hipsters, Alternate Universe - Mechanics, M/M, Misunderstandings, Stuttering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-27
Updated: 2015-03-05
Packaged: 2018-02-22 19:36:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 51,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2519393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mack had learned years ago not to get attached to any of the various shops and diners that filled the empty building across the street from his auto shop, but when a certain (hipster shit) guy, named Fitz, shows up and promises that this one will be different “that they’ll last a year,” he can’t help but want to see the little cafe succeed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. September

**Author's Note:**

> So, I've been telling myself I was going to start posting another long au (but only after I finished Skimmons things, however season two has had a severe lack of that so all of that stuff is off the table for now), and now felt like the right time to start posting something. The amount of FitzMack feels that the last episode gave me (confirmed canon not straight Fitz!!) made me certain that this one was the one I needed to post next!

September 1st, 2014

Since Mack opened his repair shop five years prior, the storefront across the street from him had held a variety of establishments.

Including but not limited to: a taco shack, a smoothie shop, a sandwich shop, another sandwich shop, a clothing boutique, a record store, a _nocturnal_ café (whatever that was), yet another sandwich shop, a frozen yogurt place, a deli, and you guessed it, another sandwich shop.

Most often though it has been an empty building with wide windows and a sign in it saying that the storefront (and accompanying upstairs apartment) was for rent _again._

He had learned not to get attached to these places early on and to enjoy the banana smoothies or fresh deli meat while they lasted, tip his hat at the shop owners, and settle back into his own place where things remained relatively unchanged.

The lights over _Mack’s Repairs_ has remained perfectly well lit over the last few years, no lack of business in the ever budding college town, where even the kids who held too tightly to their dollars to frequently indulge in restaurants, still managed to find the money to get their cars fixed when the lights on their dashboards lit up.

Thank god for rich parents and co-eds that worry every time their air conditioner makes a funny noise.

Not that Mack would cheat them out of their money, to be fair their cars usually do need fixed but, well, it’s complicated.

For now though there’s no students milling about wanting to poke their noses in his window and see if he can fix their car, or bike, or whatever it was people used to get around these days.

It was just the summer session students and most of them were too busy cramming for their tests to be driving anywhere anyways.

Slow days like these were the ones where Mack noticed things, on this instance that was the van across the street from him announcing that somebody had finally rented the place.

Front the open front of the auto shop, Mack could see the commotion of moving in already in action, there were two people standing out front, pulling boxes out of the back of the van and moving them into the store.

One of the figures leans against the side of the van, repeatedly sweeping dark hair back from her face, and refusing to pick up any more boxes. He can’t hear what she’s saying, but it clearly frustrates the other person. He’s a young man dressed in a mismatch assortment of plaid with a beanie tugged down over his head, clearly not anticipating that in California the September heat never seemed to end.

With just one look between the couple, because with their clear familiarity with each other that must be the situation, Mack was pretty sure he could guess what sort of place there would be like.

He was willing to put money on a coffee shop, or some sort of bakery- no doubt young entrepreneurs fresh out of business school that believed they could be the next Starbucks.

By his reckonings they would be out of here by Christmas, and by Thanksgiving that beat up van of theirs would find a way over to his shop for a ‘tune up’ before they leave town and go back to wherever they’re from.

The girl says something else, flicker her hair back yet again, and next thing he knows they’re both looking towards the auto shop.

There’s no romantic chimes going off in his head, no dramatic angelic singing, but there’s something there a little bit of a spark where their eyes meet, and Mack can’t help but think that if they had met eyes across a bar instead of across the street, he would have been making his way over and asking for a hookup.

Instead though he just turned away and went back to work, doing his best to ignore the couple moving into the store and apartment across the street.

 

September 4th, 2014

They opened their shop without much pomp and circumstance, a banner outside the window that simply said _now open_ , in flourishing script was the only indicator that the empty hole in the wall shop across the street had turned into anything.

Mack took that instantly as a sign that they wouldn’t be doing well, and that his predictions for the quick exit of the place across the street were on the right track.

Though he found himself slightly surprised as a more than a few faces went inside the store to check it out, however he wasn’t sure if that had something to do with the actual business on the inside or the guy standing outside the doors in a pale blue shirt that clung to his body just right as he handed out coupons to everybody that walked by.

The view was tempting enough that Mack considered more than once going over there and taking a flier, under the guise of figuring out what sort of place was going to be across the street from him.

He had almost decided to do it, had finished cleaning the engine grease off of his hands, but before he could cross the street and talk to him, out from the store came the only other person that seemed to work at the cafe. And he watched as the two exchanged some sort of quiet conversation before the woman laughed, pressed a kiss to his cheek, and then took over the job of flyering.

So there went that option.

 

September 6th, 2014

“So I’m saying this as a friend, but if you’re going to keep creepily staring across the street every time I come over to get lunch, I’m going to just drag you over there so you can satisfy whatever weird obsession you have with the coffee shop.”

“Weird obsession?”

“More like clear need to shag this barista who you’ve never met, but have seen through the windows like a peeper, that way you can get him out of your mind.”

“Don’t you have a yoga studio to run?”

“Oh ha ha, yes make fun of the yoga studio very original. This doesn’t distract me in the slightest from the fact that you are pining for a guy you’ve never met.”

“I’m not pining. I’m too old to pine.”

“Nobody is too old to pine, and that is exactly what you’re doing.”

“I’m ninety percent sure they’re a couple.”

“Who?”

“The two that run the coffee shop-”

“Oh, huh, well, maybe they’re into threesomes?”

 

September 7th, 2014

The auto shop was normally closed on Sundays.

It was the one day of the week that Mack took purely for himself and usually he spent it lounging around in his apartment, far from the college students and beach goers that flocked to the city on the weekends wreaking havoc in their local community.

If he had it his way he would have been there now, sleeping off the hangover that was a dull throb in the back of his head, a side effect of the drinks that he had gotten the night before.

The plan had been to get drunk, find an easy hook up, and forget about his interest in the neighbor that he had never met- it hadn’t exactly gone according to plan.

Because three drinks into the night, the friend that had taken him out to distract him (and play wingman) became one of those emotional drunks and Mack had to sit around and be the supportive friend while the other man whined about his upcoming divorce for another three rounds of drinks, tried to call his wife and insist she take him back, before Mack took the phone away and without any other way to distract him ordered them another round of drinks.

In the end the only person that slept over at Mack’s place was a very drunk and moody Brit.

The very one who needed a ride back to his studio the next morning, therefore bringing Mack back into town whether he had wanted to or not.

He rubbed a hand at the back of his head, and tried (unsuccessfully) to get the key to his lock of his building- maybe he was a bit more hungover than he thought, because the task ended up being a slightly more difficult one that Mack had expected.

The keys slipped through his fingers on the second try, and Mack groaned before crouching down to pick it up.

As he began to right himself, he watched as a van pulled up across the street, the same van that had shown up nearly a week before when the couple across the street moved in, but now he’s outside when it pulls up and can hear a screeching noise as it comes to a stop.

The mechanic inside of him cringes at the sound.

“Hey, neighbor,” Mack calls out, when the guy hopes out from the passenger seat of the van.

“Uh, yes,” he responds a moment later.

“You need your brakes checked. That noise isn’t normal.”

“Oh, uh- thank you?”

The reply is hesitant, almost charmingly so, clearly the guy knows nothing about his car.

Just a couple of young hipsters who thought having a van looked cool on all their Instagram posts.

“Come by sometime next week, I can take a look at that for you,” he offers.

“Are you busy now?”

“The shop’s closed on Sunday,” the gestures back to the sign, before lying, “I was actually just on my way out.”

“I see that- yeah okay-”

“Sometime next week, just swing by,” Mack says.

“Sounds - uh, sounds-”

“Good?”

“Yeah, sounds good.”

“Alright, then.”

“And if you-”

“Hey Fitz,” the young woman’s voice cuts off their conversation, and the guy - Fitz, whips around to look at his friend, “come help me unload this shit!”

“Just one sec,” he replies, before turning back to Mack and saying, “sorry I have to, uh, I have to go.”

“No big deal, don’t leave your girl waiting.”

“Right I won’t- I mean, I shouldn’t uh, she isn’t- not that we,” Fitz stops, makes an almost frustrated noise, and says, “come by for a drink sometime if you want, they’re really good,” before disappearing into his little cafe.

 

September 8th, 2014

He had planned to wait till later in the week to stop by, as not to seem too eager, but come Monday morning he was bored out of his mind and still replaying what was probably meant to be a meaningless conversation with a stranger through his head.

Going over there as soon as he took his lunch break seemed the natural thing to do.

And it was definitely just because he was being a good neighbor, not because he was still thinking about that guy’s skinny jeans which had been almost obscenely tight.

Not at all.

The sign outside the cafe labeled it _T.A.H.I.T.I_ \- which was clearly an acronym for something, though what it meant not made clear by any other sign. In fact, the only other thing with writing on it visible from the outside of the cafe was a red sign that said _Now Hiring_ on it.

Mack pushes the door of the shop opened, his entrance announced by a little _chime_ from the bell over the door.

Though even with the chime there was nobody behind the counter or coming out quickly to greet him.

If fact the place seemed to be practically empty and for a second he worried that it might not have been open, but it was nearly noon on a Monday, surely the place would still be open.

He glances around the cafe looking for some sign of anybody who might work there.

The interior of the shop was not anything that he would have expected, it just two days’ time they had turned this place from an empty story into something completely different- the was a vibe here, a comforting one that Mack was not entirely familiar with, but that he instantly found he liked.

Rather than chairs and tables of the usual fashion there was a variety of mismatched furniture in the place, reminding him of all the terrible apartments he had had in the past- most of the chairs and plush couches had Craigslist written all over them, and yet- it was comforting. The walls has been painted over in what looked like chalkboard paint and on them was a variety of things written in many different handwritings, though what stood out the most was the message in the center in big letters that said _what’s on your mind_ , reminding him of the early days of Facebook of all things.

Writing on walls.

Okay, it was kind of witty- but that didn’t mean this place was going to last.

“You’re the guy from across the street,” a voice calls out, and Mack tears his eyes away from the walls to find the source of the voice, and young woman that lays sprawled out against one of the couches, a blue apron wrinkled and stretching across her body and a laptop propped up on her knees.

No wonder he had missed her on his initial sweep of the store.

“That would be me.”

“Did you want to order something? Or just being a nosy neighbor.”

“I haven’t decided yet,” Mack admits shrugging, before looking around the shop once more, this time for a menu.

“Well, let me know if you decide,” she says, “because I’m not getting off this couch unless I _have_ to.”

“Will do.”

The only thing he saw that could be anything close to it was on the chalkboard behind what he assumed was the counter where rather than a proper menu the words _small, medium_ , and _large_ were written with prices written under them.

“What do you even serve here?”

“Coffee,” the voice that answers him says, but it’s not the girl from the couch, instead it’s the guy from before- and now that Mack can see him up in close proximity rather than just from across the street, he is reminded once again that he is _very_ much into other men.

The other guy has a blue beanie on his head, which seems to match in color with his wide blue eyes, and the aprons that are apparently the uniform around here. There’s just the right hint stubble on his face and a slightly cocky grin that’s more than slightly charming.

“Coffee,” Mack repeats the word, at loss for any other words for a moment, because he’s just noticed the skinny jeans the other man are wearing with leave practically nothing to the imagination.

If it wasn’t for the fact that the two people in the store were probably a couple, Mack would definitely have been assessing his chances of getting the other guy’s number, though seeing as how things were he held off any of that.

“Yeah, we’re a coffee shop,” and somehow Mack had completely missed the accent the first time they spoke, but now it was clearly there, vaguely reminding him of the accent of a certain _yoga instructor_ that he knew.

“I know- I wait, you’re British.”

“Scottish,” Fitz corrects Mack.

He’s about to say something more when woman on the couch interrupts them, “please don’t get him started on that. Fitz will give you a twenty minute lecture on the United Kingdom if you let him, because turning it into a debate about Scottish Independence which-”

“Is super important!”

“The most boring subject in the world,” she continues, ignoring his interruption, “seriously, save us all the trouble.”

Mack decides to listen to her advice and says, “so how about that _coffee_ of yours, I don’t see an actual menu, how do you really expect to get people to order without one?”

“Some people like to be surprised, gives them a sense of adventure,” Fitz explains.

“Other people like their drinks a specific way,” Mack points out.

Fitz just snorts at that, “well, those people can just go to uh- some other place-”

“Fuck themselves,” his girlfriend supplies with a little laugh.

“Somewhere else,” Fitz corrects with disdain, “I was going to say somewhere else, but they can do that too.”

Mack just laughs at them, before saying, “well good luck with that, if they go somewhere else you’ll be out of business before long.”

“Oh no I assure you well be fine.”  

“I give you about a month, no offense meant, man,” Mack clarifies, because Fitz has gone from sunny and smiling to clearly offended in ten seconds flat, “but this place is cursed, and there’s a Starbucks down the street and-”

There’s a little dismissive snort there, “a Starbucks,” Fitz replies with not even slightly disguised disgust in his voice, “well, we don’t cater to people who- who go to Starbucks and buy Fraps, it’s just too- ah, too-“

“Mainstream,” he supplies with an upward tilt of his lips.

That clearly wasn’t the word that Fitz was looking for, not if the furrowing of his eyebrows or the very obvious eye roll was anything to go by, “look, we’re quality coffee, and the second people realize it this place- it’ll be packed.”

“Don’t you think that’s getting a little ahead of yourself there?”

He just snorts, “as if.”

“Whatever you say, Turbo.”

“What did you just call me?”

Mack just smirks, “Turbo,” he repeats, “because you’re charging ahead of yourself.”

“Really now? Well let’s make a date of it, just you wait, one year from today, we’ll still be here,” Fitz insists.

“Is that right?”

He nods his head viciously and says, “Hey, Siri.”

For a second Mack expects the girl that had been lounging on the couch to reply, instead there’s a chirp before a robotic, and very male voice speaks up, and says, “How may I assist you?”

“Set all day event, one year from today,” Fitz says.

While Mack says, “I didn’t realize anybody actually talked to their phones in real life.”

Fitz rolls his eyes instead of responding to Mack and says, “name event: _rub the fact that we’re still here in the face of the jerk across the street.”_

Mack snorts at that while the phone recites the event back and Fitz confirms it before saying, “thank you.”

“Did you just _thank_ your phone?”

“Oh, sod off,” Fitz says, tapping a few buttons on his phone’s screen from where it sits on the counter.

“I thought you were making me coffee?”

“I’m not sure you deserve coffee anymore.”

“Ouch.”

 

September 10th, 2014

“You didn’t even get to try his _beans_.”

“Step trying to make that sound like an innuendo.”

“It was definitely an innuendo,” he winks back at Mack, before continuing, "I know what you need to get him off your mind-"

"If you say a pi-"

 "A _pity fuck_ ,” he finishes the sentence just as Mack had expected it to go.

 "If I wanted to get laid, I wouldn’t need your assistance."

 "I just want you to know that the offer is on the table if you ever change your mind."

 "Yeah,” Mack rolls his eyes, “I’ll be sure to keep that in mind."

 

September 12th, 2014

There’s no bell in Mack’s shop, no way for him to notice when people have entered the shop until they inevitably say something loud enough to be heard over the music that he turns on whenever he’s working on a project.

Normally this wouldn’t be too much of a problem, during the school year he kept one or two part time employees to man a little desk in the front for him and answer any meaningless questions that people might have, but one of them had decided to go home for the summer while the other had graduated and moved to Idaho of all places.

So he was a bit short staffed at the moment.

This was why he didn’t realize that anybody had come over until there was a not very subtle cough, the obvious sign of somebody trying to get Mack’s attention away from a car and towards them.

He sighed, wiped the engine grease off on his pants and looked up at whoever had entered the shop, slightly surprised when he saw the figure that looked so completely out of place standing there in probably a couple hundred dollars’ worth of plaid and holding a coffee mug between his hands.

“What’s up, Turbo?”

Fitz made a face at the nickname, but didn’t push it- which was a good thing because once Mack gave people nicknames he didn’t take them back.

“I realize we may have gotten off on the wrong foot,” Fitz says, shifting his weight from foot to foot, “So I brought you- some- I brought you a-”

“Coffee?”

“Yes that,” he nods, holding the to-go cup out in his hands, and it’s not like Mack could refuse to take the cup, not when Fitz is looking at him so expectantly.

The white cup sits between them like a white flag of peace and when Mack reaches out to take it from Fitz’s hand their fingers brush against each other for one small second.

“So uh, nice shop you’ve got here,” Fitz says once Mack has the cup in his hand, his eyes scanning the auto shop.

Mack instantly assumes that he’s just making small talk, but Fitz seems to scrutinize the shop in a way that is familiar to Mack. It’s the same way he looks about things when he enters other people’s work spaces, cataloguing the parts and works in progress.

“You like vintage cars,” Mack asks, when he notices Fitz’s eyes resting on Mack’s currently personal project.

“Not really,” he admits.

“I thought all hipsters were into vintage?”

“I’m not a _hipster_ ,” Fitz replies, his lips quirking up slightly.

“A real one would never admit it.”

And that gets a laugh out of him, a little unexpected thing that is altogether quite charming and relaxing.

“I suppose that’s true,” Fitz says, but then shrugs his shoulders a little bit, “honestly though I’m not- I just like- like the uh, the outfits, and the music.” He seems to have some difficulties explaining what he means, his eyebrows furrow together in something that looks almost like confusion or frustration before he says, “Skye claims I’m an _accidental_ hipster.”

“Sounds like a real struggle there,” Mack teases.

“It really is,” Fitz insists, before laughing a little again, but this one isn’t as real or genuine, instead it’s almost self-deprecating.

Not that Mack is an expert on laughs or anything.

“Anyways I should probably let you- fixing things and all that- I have to go- coffee doesn’t make its- and Skye might,” Fitz rambles, before ducking his head a bit and, “tell me what you think of it- the drink, tell me what you think of the drink, when you have time or not- I mean, I have to go.”

“Uh, bye,” Mack says, at the other man’s already retreating figure. It’s not until he’s watched Fitz hurry across the street, narrowly dodging a couple of sorority girl’s on beach cruisers, that Mack actually took a drink of the cup in his hands.

And, even if he didn’t believe the little coffee shop across the street would last, he had to admit that their drinks were delicious.

 

September 13th 2014

“I just wanted to thank you for yesterday,” Mack says as he leans on the counter, “that cup of coffee you made was delicious.”

“So you ready to take back your foolish statements from before,” Fitz asks, while he works on fixing Mack another drink. The a complicated whir of machines behind him making things that look far too complicated to be a normal cup of coffee.

“I know better than to insult the person holding my daily caffeine supply in their hands.”

He laughs again, the real one this time, and ducks his head almost like he’s embarrassed, but Mack can’t see his face so he can’t tell for sure he just gets the smart reply of, “well, at least we know you’re above the _basic_ level of intelligence.”

 

September 17th 2014

Mack’s life had certain patterns, for example every Wednesday at noon, his least favorite yoga instructor, also known as Lance Hunter, would show up with food and demand that he take some time away from work to have a conversation with a ‘normal human being’ even though the other man barely even counted as a ‘normal.’

For the last three months their conversations had usually gone from meaningless things to his friend complaining about his soon to be ex-wife, which while extremely old and annoying at this point would have been a much better thing for them to have been talking about that day.

Instead, they were talking about the same thing that they had been discussing every time for the last week that the other man had been able to corner Mack into a conversation - otherwise known as Mack’s _apparent need_ to get laid before he went across the street and jumped the poor little barista.

“I’m just saying- they could be into threesomes, and even if you’re not into women, surely you could get it up for a little but to pound his little twinky-”

“Excuse me,” a vaguely familiar, and very much female voice spoke up to cut off what Mack knew was going to be very explicit explanation of what he needed to do with his life.

Except he couldn’t be thankful for the interruption when the person standing there before them with a slightly amused tilt to her lips was the woman who worked across the street- otherwise known as the probable girlfriend of the object of Mack’s eternal frustration.

“And who might you be,” Lance says, suddenly sounding far too interested.

“Skye,” she says, sticking out a hand in introduction, “I _work_ at the coffee shop across the street.”

He should have known something was going to go wrong the second Lance got _that_ look on his face, but it wasn’t until he opened his mouth and said, “have you ever had a threesome,” that Mack realized just how much he needed better friends.

“Ignore him,” Mack tried to tell the young woman.

But she just laughs, shrugs her shoulders and replies, “yeah.”

“Would you be-”

“Not with you,” she cuts him off, and Mack’s impressed, never before has he seen a woman so smoothly turn down Lance before.

He almost wants to applaud her.

Instead he just says, “I’m assuming you came over here to talk about something other than your sex life?”

She smiles politely at that, “Fitz told me that you insulted my baby the other day.”

“I did what now?”

“My van,” she clarifies, “and it was probably a while ago, but Fitz _just_ mentioned it this morning. He kind of forgets things sometimes, you know?”

Mack’s not entirely sure that he does know but he nods his head, and she smiles at him in return.

“Should I come back after you’ve had lunch or could you take a look at her now-ish,” Skye asks, gesturing to their food boxes, “I mean, the sign did say open, but it’s not like I have anything better to do.”

“I can look at it now-”

“Woah, hey, are you forgetting my existence,” Lance squeaks out from beside him.

“Don’t you have a job or something,” Mack shoves his shoulder gently as he gets up to help Skye get her van into the shop and get it checked out.

 

September 18th 2014

“Please tell me you fixed my baby,” Skye says first thing when Mack walks into the coffee shop Thursday morning, “because I swear to god, Fitz’s couch is the most uncomfortable thing in the world and there was no way in hell I was taking a bus home yesterday so-”

“Why didn’t you just sleep in his bed,” Mack asks before he can think any better of it.

After all, usually people in relationships slept together- in both meanings of the word, but then again they could be fighting or who knows what.

“Because Fitz has the smallest bed known to man,” Skye answers, with a nod, “I’m not even sure how he fits on it.”

“I fit fine,” Fitz speaks up for himself, coming out from the back room and into the main area of the shop, his face brightening up at the sight of Mack, “good morning, my terrible employee isn’t telling lies behind my back is she?”

“Not behind you back,” he points out.

And Fitz just grins back at him, “true true.”

“Stop eyefucking each other and answer my question,” Skye practically whines, and Mack has never looked away from somebody so quickly in his life.

“He wasn’t- we weren’t,” Fitz starts to stutter, something that Mack has found charming all the other times he had noticed it, but now it only made him feel bad.

and even if they were he shouldn’t have been doing it in front of her.

“Skye!”

“Yeah, your car is done.”

“Thank God,” Skye exclaiming, before stretching her hand out over the counter and making a grabby motion, “keys, keys, keys!”

Mack laughed, but dug into his pocket to pull out the keys that she so eagerly snagged from his grasp.

“Okay, well, now that I have my baby back, I am going to go home and take a shower-”

“You can’t just leave,” Fitz says.

“Uh, yeah, I totally can, you’re not going to fire me, you love me too much,” Skye teases, ruffling his hair on her way out, “plus I _have_ to shower.”

“You could have used mine!”

“As I told you many times before, that shower is the made for like an ant, and I, as a reasonably sized human, needs a reasonably sized shower!”

“Skye!”

“Bye, boys, have fun, feel free to continue where you left off in the whole eye-fucking thing, I’ll be back in an hour,” and with that she was out the door.

Leaving Mack standing in the coffee shop with a _very_ red and _very_ embarrassed Fitz for company.

“I wasn’t- she didn’t mean- honestly, women sometimes, right,” Fitz stutters out an awkward little laugh before, “I’ll just go- coffee, I’ll just make your drink so you can- can get away from- I’m just going to shut up now.”

“So that’s a no to whole eyefucking thing?”

He’s joking, quite obviously so, but the shade of red that Fitz turns is a bit surprising and Mack feels a tiny bit bad.

“Coffee,” is all Fitz can manage to squeak out before he wiggles around Mack to start the machines up and avoid the conversation by making himself as busy as possible.

As he watches Fitz work, doing his best to keep his eyes from the skinny jean clad backside, though the distraction is very much there and very much distracting, he talks quickly, “sorry about that, I was joking. It’s totally cool, I didn’t think that we were actually,” _eye fucking,_ “you know. Plus your girlfriend was the one who brought it up and-”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Fitz cuts him off.

Years of practice have helped to school his voice so it doesn’t sound too excited or eager, but it’s a near thing, as Mack arches an eyebrow and says, “oh, yeah?”

Fitz turns around now, his coffee machine abandoned as he gives Mack an adorably confused look, “you thought Skye was my girlfriend?”

He nods his head once in reply.

And the poor guy still looks confused by the whole thing, shaking his head once he just says, “well, that’s absurd- we’re not, Skye’s my friend- but I mean- Craig’s List killer and- works for me, so it’s not like-” he’s stuttering again and not making much sense, and he seems to realize that for Fitz lets out a frustrated noise and settles on, “I’m not dating, Skye.”

“Well, that’s,” _great_ , the word he wants to say is great, except Mack can’t exactly come out and say ‘ _I’m glad you’re not dating her because now Lance can shut up about his threesome suggestions, by the way are you interested in guys?’,_ so instead he settles for, “cool.”

Fitz’s look of disbelief tells him just about how obviously moronic his comment was, but the other guy doesn’t say anything in reply, just pushes the coffee cup into Mack’s hands and says, “uh, thanks for fixing Skye’s van, this is on the house, or whatever.”

 

September 24th, 2014

He had meant to go back across the street sooner, had intended to do something about the fact that he had found out that the very adorable hipster from across the street was single, but the day after Mack’s one employee (Trip) returned from his trip home for the summer, as did much of the student population eager (or less than eager) to be getting back to school.

With all of that he was kept far too busy in the lab to think of doing much else, and even though he had Sunday off, Mack had spent the day escaping the student-populated area and instead hiding at his apartment drinking beer and catching up on all of the TV shows that he had missed.

What usually was a satisfying experience left him feeling the exact opposite this time.

And he was one hundred percent sure that that feeling had everything to do with the guy that was currently standing in his garage, laughing at something that Lance had said.

“No, no,” Fitz insists, “I can’t- I would if I could, but I can’t.”

“You can’t do what now,” Mack asks coming out of the garage and giving his lazy piece of shit friend a glare before turning a bright smile toward Fitz.

The poor guy’s face is tinged with red embarrassment again, and his fingers and drumming awkwardly against the coffee cup in his hands, “I’ve come to gloat” Fitz blurts out.

“You what?”

“Gloat,” Mack cuts off his friend, and gives Fitz a curious look, “what do you have to gloat about?”

He’s still flushing, but he looks a little bit more confident now, his stubbornly proud as he says, “we made enough money this weekend to renew our lease through November-”

“And?”

“And- and you said, we wouldn’t last a month, but now-”

“Technically you still haven’t done the whole lasting thing,” Mack points out, but it’s good natured and Fitz must realize that because instead of his expression hardening into annoyance or anger, it looks something a lot more like determination.

“But we’re going to,” Fitz rebukes.

“Mhmm, sure you are.”

There’s an awkward cough from the side and both of them look over at once to a smirking Lance, “this calls for congratulatory drinks,” he says, “and not that coffee of yours, not that it’s not great or anything, love, but what we need is beer.”

“It’s a Wednesday,” Mack points out.

“Some other time,” Fitz agrees, “I’ve got new hires to train in about thirty minutes, but I wanted to give Mack this before I - I uh-”

“Left?”

Fitz nods his head, and holds out the coffee cup, which Mack easily takes.

Written on the cup he can see Fitz’s handwriting and the words _coffee to prove you wrong_ curling around the side of the to go cup, bring a smile to his lips.

“You know if you keep giving me free drinks all the time, you’re going to go out of business,” Mack points out before taking a drink of the coffee.

“Oh you wish,” Fitz replies back too quickly, his smile definitely a challenging one now, before he nods towards the door and says, “I’ll see you around sometime,” as though it is a question, and turns to Lance with a, “nice to meet you,” before leaving the garage.

Mack is just thankful that Lance waits until the door to the garage has shut behind Fitz before saying, “now I understand why you’ve been so needy, that is one fine piece of twink, if I don’t say so myself-”

“Shut up.”

“If you hadn’t already called dibs, and I wasn’t in the middle of a divorce, that would be right up at the top of my to do list.”

“Seriously, shut up.”

“ _I’m just saying.”_

 

September 26th 2014

“You’re not Fitz,” is the first thing Mack says to the poor guy standing behind the counter, which probably isn’t the nicest thing in the world, especially since the poor guy had looked a bit intimidated since the second that Mack had walked into the store.

The guy, whose name tag reads Donnie, is still frozen in his place, manages to get out, “Mr. Fitz is in the backroom.”

The other person behind the counter, clearly one of Fitz’s new hires, is a young woman that had currently been standing on a stepstool and drawing on the chalkboard wall. She does not look to be intimidated by Mack’s presence in the slightest and just smiles at him, when she turns over her shoulder to look over at them and says, “I can go get Mr. Fitz while Donnie takes your order, if you’d like?”

“That’d be great,” Mack nods, though he’s not sure why he needs Fitz- honestly, it had just been the surprise of seeing somebody behind the counter at all, and that person being neither Skye nor Fitz that had prompted his comment.

“What size do you-”

“I got his drink,” Fitz says, appearing from the back door without her even having to go get him, and pushing Donnie out of the way to ring Mack up, “his is complicated, dietary restrictions and all that, anytime he comes in one of you go and get me, understood.”

Both of the kids nod their heads, and when Fitz turns back to look at Mack he looks almost a bit sheepish.

Mack holds off from calling Fitz on his lie in front of his team, and instead says, “sorry for being complicated,” with a wide smile.

“I’m used to it,” Fitz replies easily, before grabbing a coffee cup and going about doing whatever it is he usually does- at least this time Mack manages to be able to pay for his drink, by passing his credit card off to the girl, who he can now see has a name tag labeling her Callie.

“So the kids are new,” Mack asks.

Callie responds, “we’re in college you know, me and Donnie, oh- and Seth, but he’s not working today-”

“You didn’t fire, Skye, did you?”

Fitz makes a little noise at that, “she has bike registrations this week, told me not to expect her back in until the start of October.”

Mack decides not to question that too much, and just nods his head.

“And you’re hiding in the back?”

“I have a business to run,” Fitz insists, making Mack wonder not for the first time what is behind the curtain that leads to the ‘back room.’

“Well won’t be much of a business when you inevitably fail,” he teases.

“This again!”

“With all the eye candy in the back, why should I even come back?”

He meant it as a joke mostly, a wide grin on his face, a hint of laughter in his voice- but watching the way Fitz flushes and then scowls makes him feel a bit bad about it.

When he laugh it’s a strained little noise and, “yeah well, you’ll manage I’m sure,” before pushing the coffee cup across the table to Mack and hurrying into the backroom.

 

September 27th, 2014

When he gets a call from a friend asking him out for drinks Saturday night he doesn’t even hesitate to accept, and he tells himself it has nothing to do with the tiny bit of guilt that might be eating away at him whenever he remembered the way Fitz had looked at his comment.

But seeing as the first comment out of his friends mouth is, “you look like shit,” clearly he isn’t fooling anybody.

“To quote your soon to be ex-husband’s words I have a _major boner for the probably straight guy that works across the street_.”

Her face is apologetic, at least, and she presses a kiss into his cheek, “let’s get really drunk and pretend we’re twenty-one again.”

Which sounds like a wonderful plan.

 

September 28th 2014

At some point olive martini’s (hold the olives) had turned into shots and had ended with stumbling through downtown trying to look sober as they ventured toward Mack’s apartment.

Though it was not a convincing look when one of them was loudly shouting into her cellphone, “I would totally fuck you right now, just bring mozzarella sticks to Mack’s place, and then we can do that thing on his couch, you know the one we did that time-”

Mack does his best to pluck the phone out of her hands, “do I even want to know what you did on my couch?”

The voice on the other end of the line laughs, “not if you ever want to sit there again, mate.”

“I’m hanging up now,” Mack groans, closing his eyes to block out the mental image as well as Bobbi’s pouting face. Once the phone is shut and in his pocket, he says, “you’ll thank me later.”

“Probably,” she agrees, looping her arm through his in an attempt to make it look like she’s walking straight, but the action only keeps up till the next stop light and then she’s moving again.

Really tonight was supposed to be him getting drunk and leaning on her, not the other way around, but knowing his friends he should have expected this much.

“You’re lucky,” she slurs leaning into his chest.

“Am I now?”

“You don’t have his number,” Bobbi continues, her finger pressing up against his chest, “no drunk calls! So lucky!”

He doesn’t feel that lucky.

“Then again,” she pushes herself up onto her toes, “you call drunk the person that you can’t ever get off your mind.”

 


	2. October

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to Beej who made [this](http://sensoryinputpatterns.tumblr.com/post/101808412609/that-clearly-wasnt-the-word-that-fitz-was-looking) amazing gif set, based on the last chapter! She's amazing!

October 1st 2014

He should have known better than to open his mouth, but the question had been asked and suddenly it was out there and Mack was regretting his entire existence (or more like his friendship with this idiot).

“The obvious solution here is that we’re getting drinks-“

“That’s the obvious solution,” he repeats with an arch of an eyebrow.

“Me, you, Trip, the twink across the street, his friend with the van that Trip is super into,” Lance rattles off, “we’re getting drinks, and I am being the best friend and wingman in existence, and going to help you get a sweet shag by the end of the night.”

“Every college student in the world is going to be out this Friday,” Mack points out, “first weekend back to school.”

“We’ll blend right in.”

“No,” Mack had told him at the time and he had meant it.

Not that that had stopped Lance from planning ahead.

 

October 3rd 2014

Ever since Mack’s last awkward exchange with Fitz he had avoided going across the street at all costs, instead he had stuck to sending Trip across the street with a few dollars and in return listening to him talk about how nice Skye is when he came back with their drinks.

Things would have been perfect if they could have stayed that way, but Trip had a Friday morning lab class, which meant Mack was on his own. He had delayed for about twenty minutes longer than he would have liked, and when he finally found his way over to the coffee shop for his daily dose of caffeine, there was a person standing outside the door greets him with a wave and a smug smirk.

“I hate you.”

“I know, I know,” he replies, before making a wave towards the inside, “now let’s get you a twink.”

Mack means to good naturedly tell him to mind his own business and accusing him of planning this whole thing, but the door opens before he gets the word out.

The person standing behind the counter is none other than a very bored looking Skye, sitting on a stool with a laptop resting precariously on her legs, which she bounces up and down as she works.

She takes one look up from the screen to look at them, before calling out, “Fitz,” over her shoulder, and going back to her laptop.

“Lance Hunter,” he introduces himself with a flourish.

“We’ve met. You’re the guy wanted a threesome.”

“Technically, love, I was asking for-”

“Rumor has it you’re a yoga instructor.”

“Actually, love, I own the studio.”

She doesn’t say anything else, but her lips tilt up into some sort of smirk and she goes back to ignoring them at the same time that Fitz exits from the backroom.

He looks great as usually, possibly better, because he looks casual rather than done up in sweaters and jackets. His shirt was a pale blue that clung to his body with a bit of a plunging neckline and Mack could make out some sort of metal chain hanging around his neck, but whatever was one the end of the chain was hidden underneath his shirt.

Fitz lights up smiling so much that Mack is pretty sure the other guy has dimples. An extreme contrast from the last time he was here, where Fitz looked flushed and a little bit angry before ducking into the backroom.

“Long time no see,” Fitz says, as if they hadn’t parted on a possibly bad note before.

“Yeah, sorry about that, things got busy at the garage,” Mack shrugs.

“We met Trip though, he’s very, uh, well-” Fitz flushes a bit again, and fiddles with his sleeves, giving Skye a look before settling on, “nice.”

Skye’s snickering under her breath, but she manages to get out between her little laughs a comment of, “note to self, do not tell your boss that you want to sit on somebody’s face or he won’t be able to talk about that person ever again with a straight face.”

“I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if you did,” Mack offers, “Trip that is- not Fitz, looks like you might have broken him.”

“I think I have,” Skye agrees, before asking, “you don’t happen to want to give me Trip’s number, do you?”

“Only if you give me your boss’s,” Mack says, even though Fitz is standing right there, and maybe he has a thing for the way the other guy looks when he’s embarrassed because he can’t help himself from saying the sort of things that turn him bright red.

“Did you want a drink or did you come here to- to talk- not uh-”

“A drink would be nice,” Mack says, putting him out of his misery.

Fitz nods and starts working on making the coffee.

“Speaking of drinks,” Lance says, and for a second Mack had forgotten the other guy was there- it takes a second of looking around the room before he finds where Lance is, standing up on a chair to draw something (probably lewd) onto the chalkboard walls of the cafe, “what are you two doing tomorrow night.”

“Not you,” Skye replies so quickly, it’s almost as if she was a mind reader, that or Lance was just really predictable.

“Nothing,” Fitz answers, less abrasive than Skye, and Mack watches with amusement as Lance latches himself onto that- talking eagerly about how they should all get drinks.

“Oh ha ha, very funny. I’m going to excuse Skye’s rudeness and instead focus on my new best friend-”

“Should I be insulted,” Mack asks.

“The four of us- or five,” Lance says, “I can invite Trip if you want, could go get drinks-”

“Deal,” Skye jumps in, “tomorrow night, ten pm, at the Wildcat?”

Lance snorts, “we’re not going to the Wildcat, I know this great pub-”

“You want me and Fitz to come or not?”

He doesn’t have an answer to that, opening and closing his mouth a few times before scowling, and muttering an answer of, “fine.”

Mack makes a mental note to remind him how whipped he is (by every woman ever) later and instead leaves those two to their grumbling and takes an offered drink from Fitz’s hand.

“What am I drinking today,” he asks, before taking a sip, because while the menu may always insist he’s drinking coffee Mack is well aware that each drink he has had as been a little bit different than the others.

“Some of our new fall flavors,” Fitz replies, smiling a bit, “not that it feels like fall properly or anything, but ‘tis the season.”

“That’s Santa Barbara for you- hot as hell all year long.”

Fitz just tips his head a bit at that, the movement causing the collar of his shirt to slip to the side again, and Mack can clearly see the chain now. It looks like the sort of thing that one would wear dog tags, but Fitz is a tiny hipster thing that Mack could break with hardly any effort at all, not a military man, so that can’t be right.

Mack looks up about to ask only to meet Fitz’s eyes and he can’t look away for a moment, much more than a moment actually, they only break away at the sound of a chair toppling over and a loud shout of displeasure.

“I should probably grab him before Skye eats him alive,” Mack says, turning towards the other two.

“That might be for the best,” Fitz agrees, “I’ll- I guess we’ll-”

“See you around?”

He nods, “tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” Mack agrees, before moving away to grab his idiotic friend and wrestle him from the coffee shop.

He’s so distracted by Lance’s bullshit that he doesn’t notice what is written on the side of his cup until hours later, when what remains of his drink has gone cold.

But he inputs the number into his phone as fast as he can once he realizes what it is.

 

October 4th, 2014

Even though he was determined to believe that this was a terrible plan, concocted by a complete idiot that insisted he was playing wingman, Mack had to admit that having the whole group out together wasn’t all that bad- sure the music sucked (regardless of what Skye said), and if they played that Katy Perry song again Mack couldn’t be held entirely responsible for his actions, but hanging out with a big group was nice.

He hadn’t done this in a while, sure he’d taken one of his friends out to the bar (and ended up listening to them moan about their soon to be ex-whatever) but this was different.

It was nice.

Of course, one of the main contributing factors to how nice this was might have been the fact that Fitz was leaning up against his side, gesturing wildly and looking far too tempting to be real.

Mack had watched with pleasure as the inevitable soccer vs football debate rose up, commenting every once in a while, but really just letting the feeling of comfort and happiness wash over him.

So far all of their topics had been along that line, maybe a little bit heated depending on where they each stood on the topic.

For that matter twenty minutes into the night Measure P and Scottish Independence had both ended up on the list of prohibited topics, because to quote Skye, “getting drunk and talking politics always ends with somebody crying.”

In fact, all had been going well until Skye had said something- Mack couldn’t remember what it was exactly, but it led up to Lance saying, “you remind me of my wife.”

“Wait, you’re married?”

“Soon to be unmarried,” he corrects cheerfully.

Fitz actually looks like he might be sad for a second, features softening, when he asks, “what went wrong?”

“Please, do not ask,” Mack groans, but it’s too late to take it back now, the question’s out there.

And Mack is pretty sure he sees a smirk on Lance’s lips like the idiot had somehow planned this, then again, knowing him- he honestly might have.

“The reason our relationship didn’t work out is because while I am a mere innocent human being-”

_“Innocent_ , that’s the word you’re going with.”

“She, on the other hand, is a demonic hell beast.”

Mack lets out a laugh, “reminds me later to introduce you two to Bobbi, she’s not as bad as he’s making her out to be.”

“She’s the worst,” Lance asserts.

Skye just snorts into her drink, like she knows some big secret that she’s not letting on, and Mack isn’t the only one that catches the tone.

“What’s up, Skye,” Trip asks.

“No, it’s just,” she shakes her head, “I’m sure she’s not the _worst._ ”

“That sounds like a challenge,” Lance jumps on the chance, “time to play the worst ex game!”  

“I’ll win,” Skye announces, far too proudly.

“You’ve got somebody better than the she-demon that is soon to be my ex-wife?”

She nods her head, and Fitz makes a little noise of displeasure at her comment, “that’s not something to be proud of, Skye.”

“Well out with it, love, because I, for one, am _dying_ of curiosity.”

“Speaking of dying,” Fitz mumbles under his breath, loud enough that only the two people on either side of him could hear.

And Mack doesn’t understand his comment until Skye takes another swig of her beer and says, “I found out a month into dating this one guy that he was a serial killer.”

“No shit,” Mack says, at the same time Lance says, “you win.”

“Told you so,” she says proudly.

“Trip?”

“Skye wins, mine’s not even close to that bad.”

“Fitz?”

“I don’t have an ex,” Fitz says, looking far younger than he really is, shuffling a bit in his seat before he answers, “but there was this girl, that I liked. Except, when I told her how I felt, she - well, she took a job offer in South Africa that way she could put a whole bloody ocean between us.”

A girl, well that settled that, there was no need for Mack to keep thinking dirty thoughts about the hipster across the street when he clearly was straight.

If only the rest of his mind could get with the program.

“Her loss, mate, from what I can tell she’s the one missing out,” Lance says, and Mack can’t help but agree with that assessment.

Fitz though just shrugs, fingers drumming against the edge of his beer bottle.

“Seriously, if you’re looking for a rebound,” Lance continues, “I am more than willing to help with that, soon to be divorced and all-“

“Thanks, but no thanks,” Fitz just replies, “you’re not exactly my type.”

“Its cause of my dick isn’t it?”

“It’s cause you _are_ a dick,” Fitz corrects, with gets a round of laughter from the group, and calls for another round of drinks.

 

October 5th, 2014

“I think I’m drunk,” Fitz announces as though it weren’t the most obvious thing in the world and really Mack is ten seconds away from asking him to say something they don’t know, when he is interrupted by a robotic chirp and Skye’s accompanied groan one second later.

“Would you like me to calculate your BAC,” his phone answers a second later.

“Wait what are you-“

“He always does this! He’s obsessed with his phone! If Siri was a real person I bet he’d marry it!”

“I thought Siri was a lady robot?”

Fitz ignores both of their interruptions and says, “starting at ten in the evening, I have had two beers, three rounds of shots, one of which was vodka, while the other two,” Mack tunes out his list of their collective alcohol consumption around that point, letting Fitz’s voice drone on and on.

The next question he asks of the thing is, “when will my BAC be at the legal limit,” and once again the phone replies some numbers that Mack can’t catch  because he’s too busy making sure Lance doesn’t end up stumbling into the street as he seems keen to do.

“Is the bus still running,” Fitz’s voice carries loud and over the group, this time catching his friend’s attentions again.

“Mack lives around here,” Lance offers, “we can go there and get more drinks. You have more drinks, right, mate?”

“None of the shit you like,” Mack replies.

“Typical Mack, always ruining the fun.”

“If you guys want to crash on my couch you can,” Mack offers, ignoring the fact that there are four of them and he has _one_ couch, but he did have his bed which could fit one other person and Mack was pretty sure there was an air mattress in his closet that Bobbi had bought him months ago as an apology.

“I’ll just call a cab,” Fitz says, fiddling with the settings on his phone once more.

“Aww, Fitz, don’t be a party-pooper,” Skye whines, slipping an arm over her friend’s shoulders but Fitz just shrugs her off, and jerks away taking his phone with him as he stops in place, the rest of the group moving forward without him.

Nobody else seems to notice that he’s stopped for a few second, and when Mack does he’s the one that turns back around.

“Hey, Turbo, come on-“

“I’m calling a cab,” Fitz insists stubbornly.

“I’m sober enough to drive,” Mack offers, his hand light on Fitz’s shoulder, “if you’re that eager to get back to your place, I could-“

“No,” Fitz cuts him off looking almost angry, jerking away from his touch as though he had been burned. “Siri, call me- a- call a-“ his hands are shaking over the phone and Mack wants to help him, he wants to offer some sort of assistance and salvage what was left of this night, but Fitz keeps looking at him with this horror struck and angry look that Mack couldn’t get out of his mind.

“Call us a cab,” Skye says, her voice clearer and less shaky that Fitz’s appearing at his side suddenly and slipping the phone from his fingers. When the phone chirps back confirmation of the order only then does Fitz finally look relieved.

Mack wants to ask, he wants to know what that look meant, but he doesn’t get the chance because Skye is shouting around the group asking who wants a ride back towards the beach and before he has a chance to talk to Fitz again the cab appears to take them all away.

 

October 5th, 2014

The next morning when he wakes up slightly hungover and in desperate need of coffee, Mack shoots off a text- the first one he’s ever actually sent to the number that he’d found on his coffee cup a few days before: ‘ _Sorry if I said something wrong last night.’_

His reply doesn’t come till hours later, but when it does he’s grabbing his phone in a second and squinting down at the screen to read the reply, ‘ _nbd. we should do this again sometime.’_

He’s in the middle of trying to figure out what to type back when his phone lights up again, ‘ _wait, this is mack rite??’_

It seems a bit silly to be smiling as much as he is while sitting alone in his apartment and staring down at his cellphone, but he can’t help it.

‘ _Yeah. It’s Mack.’_

 

October 9th, 2014

It’s a sort of pattern by now, Mack walks into the shop, whoever’s working at the time (assuming it’s not Skye) calls over their shoulder for Fitz or ducks into the backroom. This time it’s Callie, whose working, she smiles at him when she enters, yells, “hey boss man,” out to the back room, before going back to tapping away on her cellphone.

“Boyfriend,” he asks her, looking towards the phone.

But she just looks up and laughs a bit, “not exactly.”

He arches an eyebrow at her in return, and she laughs again.

“Would you believe me if I said I was reading gay porn?”

“What?”

Mack doesn’t get an answer from her, though really he stops caring about an answer once Fitz slips out of the back room, looking a bit scruffier than usual, the sleeves of his grey cardigan falling down over his hands.

He looks exhausted, and when Mack says as much Fitz just gives him a weak sort of smile.

“Running a coffee shop isn’t as easy as it looks,” he says in reply.

“Suddenly regretting your need for entrepreneurship?”

He shakes his head, “you’re not winning the bet that easily.”

“I was hoping not.”

Fitz misses what he means, stifles a yawn, and continues, “it just- sometimes I miss what I was doing before- I mean- I can’t not anymore- but it was easier.”

What he had been doing before… Mack had still never gotten that answer; in fact, much of Fitz was an enigma to him. He didn’t like to reveal his past, and the only person who might have known anything was mum on the subject whenever Mack had tried to pry information out of her.

All Mack really knew was that Fitz hadn’t been in a relationship before, that the one time he almost had the girl had run off to some foreign country, and that he was from Scotland.

And even getting those details had been like pulling teeth.  

The curiosity wasn’t eating Mack away nearly as much as it might have eaten at somebody else, what mattered was that he knew Fitz now- and he liked how Fitz was now- everything else was just minor details.

“I think everybody misses being a college student,” Mack offers, hoping that that is somewhat on the right course.

That does seem sort of right, or at least it gets a little nod from Fitz, before he says, “you know I’m twenty-six, right?”

He hadn’t, but it was nice to know that twinky little Fitz wasn’t barely above jailbait or anything like that.

His look of surprise must show, because Fitz makes a little face, and says, “I’ll take that as a no- you know, it’s funny- everybody’s always saying I look young- like it’s a bad thing, but wait till you’re all old and wrinkly and I still look like a teen, then I’ll be the one laughing.”

“I don’t doubt that,” Mack agrees, “but if you don’t sleep sometime, you might get those wrinkles before you know it.”

Fitz makes a pinched face at that, “I could use a nap.”

“Your backroom have a couch?”

He means it as a causal question, trying to help Fitz find a place to nap, nothing more, but the little choked noise Callie makes quickly reminds him that they’re not alone and that his comment out of context could sound a lot less innocent.

Fitz oblivious to the innuendo says, “my apartment's upstairs- got a proper bed up there.”

“Maybe you should make use of that,” Mack’s grins back, watching out of the corner of his eye as the poor girl turns bright red.

“Maybe I will,” Fitz fires just as quickly back.

“You know if you need help navigating those stairs of yours, I could lend some assistance wouldn’t want you passing out on the way up there.”

“I think I can manage to put myself to bed just fine,” Fitz says, and maybe he does catch a hint of the innuendo, because his lips are turned upwards in a playful smile, when he hands Mack his coffee, “but I’ll keep that in mind, one day I might take you up on that offer.”

 

October 13th, 2014

Usually when Mack brings coffee back from across the street, Trip would respond with some sort of message of thanks, or a faux-casual question in regards to whether Mack had inquired as to the next time Skye would be working.

However, this time he doesn’t even look up when Mack comes into, his eyes glued to his phone, not unlike the college students across the streets.

He feels a bit old when his first thought is _kids these days_ , so he keeps that bit to himself and instead asks, “you finally get Skye to give you her number?”

That gets Trip to look up, “not exactly,” he says, still grinning before, “have you ever heard of yik yak?”

“Let’s go with no.”

“It’s this app,” Trip explains, “kind of like anonymous local twitter, which might make even less sense,” it does, but Mack doesn’t clue him into that and just shrugs, “well on the app you vote on the top yaks, which it’s complicated, but man, you got to see the top yak right now.”

“And why’s that?”

“Here I’ll read it for you,” Trip replies, before assuming some sort of feminine sounding character voice, “ _Pretty sure my boss and the hot mechanic across the street are hooking up. Hashtag hot-damn,_ that’s all one word, _hashtag wow_.”

It takes Mack an embarrassingly long second to put two and two together, but then it all sort of clicks.

No more than a few minutes ago he had been standing in T.A.H.I.T.I. joking around with Fitz in a way that was probably flirty; Mack wasn’t going to deny that he was interested in the guy and that it felt natural. Though they hadn’t been the only ones there, once again a very embarrassed looking Callie had been sitting off to the side typing on her phone when she wasn’t dealing with other customers, which meant that she was probably the one that posted it.

“We’re not hooking up,” Mack says, pointing out the obvious flaw in this.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Oh huh,” Trip says, before his fingers are flying across the keys, “do you want me to comment on it and correct her or-”

“Nah, it’s cool.”

 

October 15th, 2014

"God Bless Fall,” Lance says when he enters the coffee shop, dragging Mack with him even though Mack already got his daily cup that morning, and they’re supposed to be on their _lunch_ break, “the season of yoga pants and pumpkin spice lattes.”

"First off, we don’t serve pumpkin spice lattes," Skye says pointing out their menu, which as always remains unchanged, though they all are well aware that the menu is their purely for sizing and the drinks themselves are made up to the whim of the barista, , "secondly, don’t you own a _yoga studio?”_

"That I do, which actually reminds me-"

"No," Skye cuts him off.

"You didn’t even let me-"

"The answer is still no."

"I would literally pay you to attend my classes, so I could see what that ass looks like in yoga pants."

"Does that normally work on people?"

"If I told you that was how I met my soon to be ex-wife would you be slightly more convinced to take a class?"

"Not a chance."

“You two still doing the weird flirting thing,” Fitz asks, emerging from the back without any actual prompting, though Mack is certain that the raised voices Skye and Lance get up to when talking to each other must have had something to do with it.

“We’re not flirting,” they both say weirdly in sync, and in the moment that follows trying to ponder that out, Mack turns to Fitz.

“They’re doing the thing,” he answers the other man.

And Fitz for his part wrinkles his nose, “I would tell them to go - to get-”

“Get a room?”

“Exactly,” Fitz inclines his head, “but I think they might take me up on that offer.”

“They probably would,” Mack agrees.

Fitz nods some more, shuffles a bit, before saying, “I already saw you today.”

“Oh yeah, I’m not actually sure why we’re here, we usually get lunch on Wednesday’s but apparently coffee is now code for lunch and-”

“Are you hungry?”

“Yeah, but I’ll manage to grab Lance away, or I’ll send Trip to-”

“Do you like bagels?”

The question is a little bit out of left field, but Mack’s known Fitz for almost two months now and has learned not to question what he’s saying too much- it may sound like nonsense to Mack at first, but usually these things had a way of clearing up.

“Yes?”

“I have some bagels in my apartment if you want, we can leave them to their - the uh - conversation-”

“Weird flirt thing? Right, Turbo, let’s do bagels.”

Fitz nods again, before turning on his heel and heading into the backroom, and for a second Mack thinks he’s should wait there until Fitz comes back with food, but when he doesn’t follow the other man hits the frame of the door almost impatiently and says, “come on.”

The backroom is not what he would have expected, there’s a few complicated machines back there for whatever it was that the cafe needed, a couch and a few chairs in a similar mismatched style to those decorating the main floor of the cafe, a couple of mac’s with cords stretched out across the floor, and a few piles of paperwork. It was a bit of a mess, a mess that Fitz bypassed with careful steps in order to reach a red door towards the back. He shoved a key into the door’s lock, jiggled it a bit, and then opened it up to reveal a stairwell - the one that Mack could only assume led to Fitz’s apartment.

The stairwell was cramped, as was the flat that it opened up to.

A countertop with a hot plate, toaster, and at least three different coffee pots served as some sort of kitchen. Posters were pinned up on the wall showing a variety of things from space charts, to movie posters ( _Planet of the Apes_ and _Jurassic Park_ cropped up more than a few times each), to the sort of stereotypical hipster quotes- leaving not an inch of white wall space visible. Taking up the most space in the room was a bed, that could be a twin xl at max in size, and was covered in a variety of what looked like hand knitted quilts.

The couch that Skye had mentioned sleeping on before must have been the one downstairs because there was certainly no room for a couch up here, just a little table and two desk chairs positioned next to it.

There was something interesting about being in somebody else’s space, seeing how they lived and what they called home- it was a bit small and disorganized, like Fitz, but at the same time there was a homey feel here that Mack highly doubted anybody else would have been able to fill this space with so well.

“You can sit on the bed or a chair, I don’t mind,” Fitz says, waving his hand about dismissively, “you’re not allergic to cream cheese are you?”

“Not last time I checked,” Mack replies, giving the bed a hesitant glance before settling on one of the more steady chairs.

He watches as Fitz makes his way around the kitchenette, pushing himself up on his toes to reach a shelf and Mack really wants to get up and help him, but at the same time it’s hard to convince himself to do so when he can sit there and admire the view. Without his help Fitz manages to get the door to the cupboard open and while Mack had expected the cupboard to be filled with the usual college student munchies, he was surprised to find that the only thing in there was bagels.

“I feel like I should ask if you eat anything else.”

Fitz makes a little snorting noise as he wrangles one of the bags of bagels down and feeds two of them to the little toaster in the room.

“Costco,” he says in his defense, “I told Skye to get me food and she returned with eight of these bags.”

“You didn’t go with her?”

Fitz makes a vague sort of gesture, shaking his head and his body at the same time, “busy you know with stuff- I was going to take the bus but- you can’t go to Costco with the bus.”

“Right, you know if you needed a ride over there sometime, you could always ask. I’d be happy to take you on a proper grocery run.”

“I’m fine,” Fitz insists, and for a second he looks like he’s going to say something more, about grocery shopping or who  knows what, but then the toaster dings and he’s quick and work whipping the up a snack.

Mack may not have been a connoisseur of bagels or anything of that sort, but there was something about this one that was special, thought that just might have had something to do with the guy that settled into the other chair across from him, so close at the cramped little table that their knees were touching.

 

October 17th, 2014

“They make _pumpkin spice vodka,_ so we’re all coming to the studio and getting drunk in honor of fall,” Lance says, interrupting him from his work, his hand making a loud thumping noise as it hits the hood of the car Mack had been working on, “you have no choice, I already invited Fitz, and Skye, and told them you’d be there, so you _have_ to come.”

“When?”

Lance pauses, blinks a few times like he didn’t expect Mack to just accept that without any struggle, before he pauses and says, “uh, right now?”

He eyes the clock, “it’s not even eight yet.”

“I’ve got four bottles,” he offers in reply, “not that we’re going to drink through all of them, right away.”

“You bought four bottles of pumpkin spice vodka?”

“There was a sale at BevMo, don’t judge, just close up shop and come on.”

It takes him about thirty minutes to actually close up the garage, and by time he’s done so the other two are waiting outside talking with Lance (or more accurately Skye and Lance are talking, while Fitz stands off to the side, trying to bury himself in an oversized knit sweater).

“Sorry for taking so long,” he says as he joins them, not missing the look of relief on Fitz’s face or the way the other man seems to nearly press to Mack’s side as they follow Lance along down the dark street for a few blocks to where his yoga studio sits.

“Don’t you live around here,” Skye pulls a face, and when he nods in reply she asks, “any particular reason why this kickback couldn’t happen there?”

Mack beats him to answering the question, “you’ve seen Fitz’s apartment, yeah?”

And Skye nods her head, making a little face, “if you want to call that an apartment.”

“His is maybe a foot bigger.”

“It’s just a temporary place, since Bob kicked me out, after you know,” he says vaguely, before opening the door to the studio, “this place is my real home.”

“You mean the excuse for you to check out teenage girls in yoga pants?”

“Just for that, you don’t get to drink the vodka,” he says.

But as they settle down any petty threats are forgotten, yoga mats are set up in some semblance of a couch, and the first bottle is cracked open.

“They make pumpkin spice everything,” Fitz says, before taking a handle pull like a champ, for somebody so small he sure can hold his liquor, though that doesn’t stop a part of Mack from worrying that any second now the other guy will pass out, “pancakes, and cupcakes, and candies, and condoms, and-”

“And coffee,” Mack replies with a smirk, that gets him a little kick for his troubles.

“But vodka, this is a whole new low.”

Mack takes the bottle from his fingers, taking his own drink, vaguely tasting a hint of the advertised pumpkin spices, before handing it off to Skye, who all too eagerly takes it from him.

“Fuck pumpkin spice,” she announces, once she’s taken a drink, “it doesn’t even taste like pumpkin, it tastes like burning.”

“Somebody’s a lightweight,” Lance singsongs as he relieves her of the bottle.

“Am not,” she objects, “it’s stupid, you know there’s not even any real pumpkin in it. I googled it.”

“That’s because pumpkin is bland- nobody just eats pumpkin- the spices that’s the- the stuff,” Fitz says, before reaching up to slip the bottle from Lance’s fingers, and taking an impressively long drink.

“Should you really be drinking that much,” Mack asks when the bottle is returned to him, their circle continuing, “no offense, man, but you’re tiny.”

“I’m also Scottish,” Fitz points out, “this is my morning cup of tea.”

“That doesn’t even make sense,” Skye coos, “god, you’re so drunk right now, Fitzy- Fitz-o.”

He pulls a face, “never call me that again.”

“ _Leopold_!”

“ _Mary Sue!”_

“I feel like I’m missing something,” Mack says, holding out the bottle for somebody else to take it.

But Skye’s still having a weird staring contest with Fitz, and neither so it’s Lance that reaches up and grabs the bottle, “you and me both, mate, you and me both.”

Skye breaks away from Fitz’s staring contest first, turning to smile at Mack in a very mischievous way, “you know Fitz is his _last name_ , right?”

Mack had guessed that, but seeing as he didn’t technically go by his first or last name, he hadn’t really thought it was his place to bring it up.

“Yeah, well, his first name is _Leopold_ , and he hates it. So feel free to taunt him forever on my behalf.”

“Her name’s Mary Sue,” Fitz jumps in.

“Wait, how do you get Skye out of Mary Sue?”

“I’ll never tell,” she says, before pretending to zip her lips shut.

“It is chill you guys don’t like your names,” Mack shrugs his shoulders, “since we’re clearing the air mine’s Alphonso, but there are three people in the world who can call me that without it sounding completely awful and they’re all related to me.”

It wasn’t that he disliked his name, it was okay as far as names go, but since he was a kid he had been Mack, and the nickname had just stuck through the years.

Though the quiet way Fitz rolled the name, “Alphonso,” over his tongue, almost made Mack want to go back to being called by it, just so he can hear Fitz say the word again and again.

The conversation switches from names to something else that Mack won’t remember in the morning, another bottle is opened, and it seems as if they’re night will probably be spent this way until Skye’s phones goes off, interrupting their festivities.

“The fuck?”

She scrambles forward grabbing the phone and unlocking it, staring at the notification that had set off her alarm with a look that was suddenly a lot more like horror, than drunk festivities.

“What’s wrong?

“Today’s Friday, not Saturday,” Skye says, as though she’s only now realized this.

“Yeah?”

“Shit, shit, fuck-  I have work in like twenty minutes,” she runs a hand through her hair, messing it up some more, “Fitz can you make your phone calculate how long it will take till I’m sober.”

“More than twenty minutes,” Fitz says, but he pulls out his phone anyways, already speaking to it and guesstimating Skye’s drinks as she panics.

“I was supposed to go home, I left my uniform there and-”

“I thought you worked at T.A.H.I.T.I.,” Lance asks.

“I have three jobs,” Skye says, “have to find a way to pay for school somehow, but I don’t think,” she fumbles out of her phone and calls somebody looking more and more panicked until the phone clicks up and her shoulders relax a bit, “hey Raina, best coworker and friend ever, please tell me you have a spare uniform because I forgot mine and-” she pauses listening to something on the other side, “slightly tipsy, but I will love you forever if you-” again a pause before, “thank you, okay I’m on my way right now.”

“Siri says three hours,” Fitz says, tilting the phone at her so that she can see whatever the read out it, and Skye nods about.

“So, half my shift I need to pretend to be sober, great. Look, I’m sorry to drink and ditch like this, but I have to go otherwise I’ll probably get fired and then I won’t be able to eat.”

“Do you want somebody to walk with you to your friend’s place,” Lance offers, and he’s not sure whether it’s Lance being a good friend to Skye or a terrible wingman for Mack.

She just gives him a deadpan look, “you do know what my job is, right?”

“Showing up for work at eleven pm, I’m assuming _stripper_.”

“Campus Security.”

“Wait- are you a student?”

“Does that make you feel like more or less of a creep for checking me out all the time?”

“I should probably get going too,” Fitz says, rising up from his seat, stumbling a little bit, and Mack reaches out a hand to steady him quick enough. “Though unlike Skye, I wouldn’t mind somebody to walk me home.”

“I can do that, Turbo, heading the same way and all.”

He ignores Lance’s pouts as he shepherds everybody else out of the studio.

The streets are dark, something about streetlights being too expensive in this part of down, the only real light coming from the moon up above them and the lights from various apartments shining out onto the street.

Its sort of peaceful and sort of eerie.

Though it becomes hard to focus on the night around them when Fitz is walking next to him their shoulder bumping together every few seconds (or Fitz’s shoulder bumping into his side since the other man is definitely on the shorter side of things).

Finally the silence between them is broken, “this was really nice- even if it got cut short. I had a good time.”

“Me too,” Mack agrees.

“We should maybe- if you’re not busy and I’m not busy- we could, uh,” Fitz scrambles for his words, and part of Mack wants to speak up and fill the blank, but another part of him doesn’t want to leap too quickly and scare Fitz away in case he is reading into this wrong. The confirmation he’s not comes a moment later, “we should do this again.”

“Yeah, I’d like that, Turbo.”

He catches the nickname and snorts a little bit, bumping into Mack again, but in a good humored way, but he doesn’t say anything else until Mack’s walked him all the way back to his shop, and it’s a good natured, “good night.”

That Mack returns easily.

 

October 21st, 2014

When he opens the door to the garage in the morning he finds that he’s not the only one there.

Bobbi grins at him from the top of one of the cars, holding a cup of coffee in her hands with a logo that Mack couldn’t have missed noticing even if he tried.

“I would ask but-”

“You gave me the keys,” she says simply, “also I had to check out the guy you were crushing on.”

“Are.”

“Are crushing on,” Bobbi corrects.

“So to be clear, you broke into my garage just to inform me that you went across the street to get coffee-”

“And to pester you about that for developments.”

“And that,” Mack nods, “that’s all?”

She gives her a Cheshire cat grin, and before she even opens her mouth he knows where this is going and looks around the area before noticing a manila envelope, he groans at the sight of it.  

“No, I am not being the go-between for you two.”

“Please?”

 

October 22nd, 2014

“I have a gift for you.”

“Is it a good gift like booze and a pre-paid prostitute,” Lance asks, “or is it more like an empty box of cereal and herpes.”

He’s not sure even how to answer that one, and just hands Lance the envelope.

“Ah, so it is the herpes.”

 

October 24th, 2014

“I missed you,” Fitz says, like it’s something that he can just say without expecting Mack to have any sort of reaction to it.

He’s just lucky that Fitz is working on making his drink and isn’t looking at Mack, because he’s sure his facial expression must really have been something for a second there. At least if there kid behind the counter’s (Seth’s?) expression is anything to go off of.

Though his expression is schooled back to his normal wide grin by the time Fitz turns around to see what his employee’s reactionary noise was for.

“Oh, yeah?”

He nods his head, “you’ve been sending Trip the last few days, which is fine and all- Trip is nice, he’s just not you.”

“Sounds a bit there like you like me, Turbo.”

And he means it as a joke, really, but when Fitz snorts a bit and says, “of course I do, you’re my friend,” he doesn’t know what to say.

So he doesn’t say anything.

His brief silence is misinterpreted by Fitz who suddenly looks a bit awkward, “I just mean- we talk so much, and get drinks- so we’re mates.”

“We’re friends, yeah.”

“Yeah,” Fitz echoes, a bit more hesitant, before pushing a hot cup of coffee into Mack’s hands.

 

October 25th, 2014

“You’re _friends_.”

“Shut up.”

“I can’t,” he says, between wheezes of laughter, and this if anything was proof that Mack needed to stop asking Lance for advice, “ _friends._ ”

“Okay, I’m cutting you off for the night,” Mack says, grabbing the beer bottle from the other man’s hand and getting his hand slapped away.

“I hope you know that by telling me this, I’m going to tease you endlessly until you manage to shag him.”

 

October 29th 2014

“What are you boys doing on Halloween?”

“Is that an offer?”

“Staying in my apartment and praying that rowdy college students don’t break into the garage.”

“Hopefully not getting arrested.”

“I don’t know. Halloween’s not that big deal, is it?”

It was at that last answer, Fitz’s that the four of them all stop and whip around to look at him. He doesn’t even look ashamed of the fact, just shrugs his shoulders as if living in Santa Barbara and not caring about Halloween was possible. Certainly it was possible to dislike it, but not having a thought on the matter.

Skye’s the one that break the stunned silence first, sliding over to wrap an arm around Fitz’s shoulders, “oh sweetheart, you have _no idea_.”

And that opens the floodgates for everybody to begin talking.

“It’s the biggest event in the city,” Mack tries to explain, “they shut down this whole area of town, to keep people from out of town-”

“Damn out-of-towners! They ruin everything!”

“Really they do.”

“There’s going to be so many cops around here, just in case things go to shit again,” Skye speaks up, “but somehow I have managed to get the night off, and since all my friends other than you idiots work with me- or I’ve slept with them, this means that we five amigos are going to have to do something awesome to celebrate my last Halloween here, and Fitz’s first!”

“So, you want to throw a party or-”

“Not exactly,” Skye grins, clearly having planned this all out, “though I’m one hundred percent down to pre-game, if you have more of that vodka around-”

“I can get more.”

“ _Perfect!_ Halloween night we’re going to Rocky Horror! No objections allowed,” Skye continues, “now I don’t care if you dress up or not- but you totally should. As far as suggestions go, Fitz here is being the Brad to my Janet, end of story.”

“I don’t even know who that is,” Fitz mumbles from her side, but Skye grins like that was her whole point in the thing.

“Don’t worry you get to wear your glasses, it’ll be cute,” she reassures him before whirling on the rest of them, “now- Mack should be Rocky, because hot damn.”

“Sorry, sister, I don’t swing that way,” he winks, and while Skye does not seem affected by his wink, Fitz (standing right next to her) turns bright red.

“Doesn’t mean I can’t admire the view,” she says, “Trip can be Meatloaf or something cool like that.”

“Meatloaf,” Fitz echoes again in confusion.

Really the fact that he’s never seen Rocky Horror is far too charming- at this point he would have thought that every hipster alive would have seen it, reclaiming that part of history as their own and calling it retro or some nonsense like that, but Fitz just gave an adorable confused look as Skye and Trip discussed his need for a leather jacket and hot ending up being eaten for dinner.

“So, what about me,” Lance cuts off their side discussion, with a bit of an almost _jealous_ scowl, “who do it-”

“Riff Raff.”

“No-”

“You asked,” she points out.

“Well, your answer is rude.”

“Your face is rude.”

“I’m so confused,” Fitz mumbles again, just loud enough for Mack to catch before Skye and Lance start bickering.

“Don’t worry,” Mack tells him, “I’ll explain everything later.”

 

October 31st, 2014

They were pregaming when it happened, one second somebody was lining up a set of shops on the floor of the yoga studio and the next the rain was coming down impossibly hard.

It had been going at it like that for twenty minutes, when they all gave up on hoping that it would stop.

“You don’t think it’s a hurricane, do you,” Fitz asks, bumping into Mack’s side.

Fitz has been a distraction since the night began, dressed in his usual pressed sweater look, but wearing dark framed (“hipster”) glasses that were doing all sorts of things to Mack’s ability to concentration.

Of course, Mack had been bullied into following Skye’s instructions and he liked to think that he rocked that golden speedo.

If the way Fitz kept glancing at him and turning red in the face was any indicator, then he figured he most certainly was.

“Nah,” he answers, “just an end to this drought.”

“No show then?”

“They’ll probably still do the show, and if you want to run down a few blocks in the pouring rain-”

He makes a face, “no thank you.”

Somewhere behind him he hears a noise of objection, somebody telling them not to be party poopers but it’s a bit hard to focus on that.

“I’m sure Skye could pirate the movie and we could watch it here,” Fitz continues.

“You know that’s not a bad idea,” Mack nods, “we’d miss the callbacks, but, that could work.”

“I’ll go bug her,” Fitz agrees, sliding away.

Twenty minutes later when the rain is still pouring outside, but they’re all crammed together on impromptu couches made of yoga mats, with the movie playing on Skye’s tiny computer screen, and Fitz curled up against his side pretending to listen to Lance’s explanation of all the callbacks and inside jokes- he has to admit, this is probably the best Halloween he’s ever had.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes:
> 
> 1\. So this fic takes place loosely in Santa Barbara, which means there are a few areas that I reference in the fic without using their "real names" because I'm fudging up the locations near where I live on purpose. One notable thing is the places in which people live. Essentially for somebody that knows nothing about this area, once you skip past the rich people houses, and the suburb areas, there are two main places people live- downtown which is where all of the shops are and the bars and generally when you see pictures of Santa Barbara its all from the downtown area. The other main place people think of is the area near the University (aka where the shops/restaurants catering to Uni students are) this place is popularly called IV (though I've managed to avoid calling it that in the fic.) This is where the Garage/Coffee Shop/Yoga Studio are. There is also a suburb-y town near that (where people living in IV go to buy groceries and stuff) called Goleta.
> 
> 2\. Mack and Bobbi live downtown. Fitz, Trip, and Lance live in IV. Skye lives in Goleta (but we'll get more on that later.)
> 
> 3\. The Wildcat, is a bar in Santa Barbara mentioned in the Katy Perry song "This Is How We Do" (not relevant, but I also know the bouncer who works there.)
> 
> 4\. Scottish Independence and Measure P are too political "issues" mentioned here. I don't know much more about Scottish Independence than what Wikipedia will tell you. Where as Measure P is a Santa Barbara specific measure that was voted on (today technically) and it was about fraking. (The oil kind, not the sex kind.)
> 
> 5\. Pumpkin Spice vodka is a thing and it does not taste like pumpkin at all.
> 
> 6\. The serial killer ex Skye talks about is not Ward. I have plans to bring him in later, I just really wanted to include that line.
> 
> 7\. This story takes place over the course of a year so relationships that may or may not exist now may or may not become relevant or existing later. 
> 
> 8\. If you have any other questions or things you want to see in the notes, send me an ask about it on [tumblr](plinys.co.vu) and I'll add it!


	3. November

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys for first off I want to say so sorry that this has taken a few weeks to get posted up. 
> 
> I received a good deal of negativity after the last chapter- though not much of it was said to my 'face'. However, just an fyi for those of you on tumblr tagging a post with the ship name or using the @ sign to tag my username makes it easier for me to find you saying those things and can be pretty hurtful and discouraging. 
> 
> Yeah, so I guess that's a psa and a explanation for the rest of you reading along for why this took so long...
> 
> For those of you that are reading along and enjoy the fic though, thanks! It means a lot to me! :)

November 1st, 2014

“Mack, my dear amigo-”

“Skye, you’re not even Spanish-”

“Settle a debate for us.”

“I feel like I should just walk out of here right now and never come back,” Mack says, looking between the only two people in the coffee shop; Skye with an over eager grin and Fitz with an expression that was the exact opposite.

“Please don’t,” Fitz mumbles.

But Skye barrels on, “have you noticed anything different about the place?”

He gives a quick look around the shop, but seeing nothing obviously amiss shrugs his shoulders.

“The ambiance, the feeling of festivity-”

“You mean Mariah Carey?”

“Bingo,” Skye says, before turning to Fitz, “see look normal people know what song this is without having to ask their _phone._ ”

“Really, Turbo?”

“It’s been one bloody day.”

“Don’t deny you like it,” Skye just laughs, “and even if you don’t, I, as master of the cafe’s Wi-Fi and radio system, will be broadcasting for you non-stop Christmas music until the twenty-fifth.”

“It’s _November_ ,” Fitz all but hisses, "you’re not supposed to be playing Christmas music in November."

“Uh, yeah you are, right Mack?”

“I don’t want to choose sides,” he says, raising his hands in a placating way, “but Skye does have a point-”

“I hate both of you,” Fitz says, his face twisted into a grimace, “and I’m going to figure out how to hack the music system, just you wait?”

“Excuse you, I’m a computer science major.”

“And I have two PhDs,” he retorts so quickly that Mack nearly gets whiplash.

Because that was not something that people just dropped in normal conversation, they’ve known each other for nearly two months now and somehow Mack had completely missed the memo that Fitz was a genius. Certainly he’d caught on that Fitz was smarter than the average person, and that he was very secretive about his past, but he never mentioned anything about having such prestigious degrees.

And for that matter, if he did why was he making coffee for college students instead of teaching them?

Mack wants to ask about that, wants to find a way to work an explanation for that comment out of Fitz, but he and Skye are back to debating the music choices in the shop as if Fitz hadn’t just dropped a bombshell.

Though that might have just meant that Skye had already known.

He makes a little noise under his breath, sometime that’s almost a cough and the two baristas turn back to him at once, one with an arched eyebrow and the other one looking a bit shamed.

“Sorry, you want your coffee- not to debate music- I’ll do that.”

That wasn’t exactly what Mack had been going to say, but still he found himself answering, “yeah.”

 

November 3rd, 2014

They’re still playing Christmas music the next time that he makes it into the shop.

Though it’s not Skye behind the counter this time, instead Callie is back there dancing with Donnie (or dancing around him while he stands behind the counter trying to pretend that he doesn’t like it).

“Christmas music not your favorite either,” Mack asks, giving the kid a nod, before he scampers off to get Fitz.

“Not exactly,” he offers in reply, before ducking into the backroom.

Callie just smiles at Mack, and leans against the counter, “you should see him when we put the Frozen soundtrack on.”

“I didn’t realize Frozen was Christmas?”

She laughs as though him not understanding is a great oversight on his part, and says, “it totally is.”

When Fitz appears from the backroom, he grins at Mack for a split second before scowling and saying, “somebody change the music.”

“It’s _Rocking Around the Christmas Tree_ ,” Callie says in a horrified voice, “you can’t just change a classic.”

“You said that about the last three songs,” Donnie points out.

“That’s because they’re all classics, which you would know if you listened to Christmas music.”

“I’m _Jewish._ ”

Fitz rolls his eyes, and waves the two of them out from behind the counter, saying, “go take your breaks,” as he does so.

The second they’re gone from the room, Fitz drops down behind the counter, and Mack leans over the top of it to watch him as he fiddles with some sort of radio system that is under the counter. It looks a bit like a car radio all rigged up to a Bluetooth and surround sound system.

It also looks like it’s confusing the other man, whose staring at the machine in front of him with a look of frustration.

“Need some help,” Mack offers.

“I know how this works,” Fitz insists, but his hands still hover in front of the machine, doing nothing and after a second he admits in a much smaller voice, “but I wouldn’t complain if you wanted to take a look.”

This isn’t the first time Mack has been behind the counter, though a little voice in the back of his head reminds him that it is the _second_ and technically the first time he was only back there for a brief moment crossing the threshold in order to reach Fitz’s apartment.

Now he has time to dwell back there, time to see the whole cafe from a very different point of view before dropping down to help Fitz with the radio system.

“Where’d you get this thing,” Mack asks, letting out a low whistle of appreciation for the construction of the thing.

The mechanic in side of him smiles at the sight of something so well done.

That is until Fitz drops a bombshell, so to speak and says, “I made it,” with a shrug as though it is no big deal, before adding, “though Skye fiddled around with it a bit, messed the whole thing up.”

“You made this,” Mack repeats still a bit stunned.

Fitz had mentioned casually before that he had PhDs and now he was doing the same thing about the radio- acting like this was all no big deal. There was a lot more to the hipster than what met the eye, Mack knew that much, but that didn’t stop him from being surprised with every little turn of events.

Beside him Fitz nods his head, “but my hands aren’t- they shake sometimes and I don’t want to break the- the- if you could just-”

He’s struggling with something, words he _can’t_ say or words he doesn’t _want_ to say, Mack can’t be sure, but he’s struggling- so Mack steps up and says, “yeah, I got this,” before getting to work.

It is a bit weird having somebody watch him as he works, even in the garage it is a rare thing. Sure, Bobbi or Lance might stop by from time to time, but they’re never really watching him work (instead they come with intentions to distract him from his work). And Trip is a near constant presence when he’s not in his classes, but he works for Mack so that’s different as well.

This though, this is Fitz staring at him as he works, with a look of concentration on his face that Mack notices when he glances out of the corner of his eye for a split second. The only man so close that if Mack really wanted to, and he did _want_ to, he could turn his head and kiss him.

He doesn’t though, instead he fiddles with the machinery until gaining access to the Bluetooth ports, “and there we go.”

Fitz steps up then, pulls out his phone and quickly commands it to, “play music,” and a moment later the never-ending stream of Christmas tunes are cut off and instead replaced by music from some band that Mack has most certainly never heard of.

But he could care less about the song that’s playing, all he really can care about is the smile on Fitz’s face as he expresses his thanks, “I owe you,” Fitz insists, “anything you want, you just let me know.”

Mack kind of wants to say the one thing he does want from Fitz, but holds off, smiles and says, “I’ll save that favor for later.”

“Alright-y then,” Fitz says in an upward pitched voice, before standing up again and saying, “let me make you coffee, at least?”

 

November 4th, 2014

“What do you mean you’ve never seen _V for Vendetta?_ ”

Mack just shrugs, bringing the coffee up to his lips and relishing in the sweet chocolaty flavor of Fitz’s current blend, “I never had the need to watch it.”

Fitz looks horrified in reply, forgetting that nearly a week before they had had a very similar conversation regarding the fact that Fitz hadn’t seen Rocky Horror, “this is unacceptable.”

“That so?”

He nods, “we’re fixing this.”

“And how do you plan to fix it, exactly?”

“Tomorrow night,” he answers easily, “after we close shop, you can come over here and we’ll watch it.”

“Do you even have a TV?”

“No,” Fitz admits, “but I have a laptop and-”

“I have a TV,” Mack offers, trying not to sound too overeager, “I could pick you up when you’re done with work; you bring the movie and we’ll put it up on my flat screen.”

“I- oh,” Fitz pauses, a pause long enough that Mack almost wants to speak up and take it back, for fear that he’s made the other man uncomfortable, but the Fitz nods and says, “I’d like that a lot.”

 

November 5th, 2014

At first, Mack had thought that the other man was nervous about the fact that they were doing this thing at his place, somewhere that Fitz had never been before, or that fact that technically this probably could have been considered a date (and Mack would have wanted to, if he thought for a second that Fitz could have a similar notion) by other people’s standards.

However, as they drove toward downtown, and Fitz, who kept running his fingers up and down his seatbelt, spoke in a tense voice, “you’re over the speed limit,” that it kind of hit Mack.

“Less than five miles over is fine,” Mack says, still slowing tone in hopes of getting Fitz to calm down a bit.

It works, slightly, Fitz letting out a little break, “just don’t- get hurt, you know, if we--”

“We’re not going to get into an accident,” he says, guessing the other man’s nervousness.

Vaguely he recalled past conversations like this, Fitz getting mad about him driving after they’ve been out, his more than occasional complaints about taking the bus everywhere, or the way he had squished into one of the backseats of Skye’s van the last time they had all been in there together and refused to make conversation with anybody else.

“You don’t for sure” Fitz says, voice small, and there’s something there- something sad in his tone that makes Mack want to reach out and wrap Fitz in a giant bear hug.

Instead he moves so that both hands are on the wheel, and says, “I promise.”

Fitz’s voice is barely above a whisper, saying, “you can’t promise that,” but he doesn’t give Mack a chance to respond before he leans forward to fiddle with the radio muttering on and on about how he hates Christmas music and how Mack needs to learn to listen to decent music.

They don’t talk about it again the rest of the night, they get back to Mack’s place and Fitz seems so relieved just to be out of the car that he doesn’t even seem to care that he is in Mack’s apartment rather than his own- he just instantly makes himself at home, stealing snacks from Mack’s cupboards before positioning himself in front of the TV with his phone and laptop deciding to give Mack’s entertainment system an ‘upgrade’ before the movie.

“Is that really all that necessary,” Mack asks, leaning over Fitz’s shoulder to watch him at work.

Fitz snorts, “of course it is,” before shooing him off, “go sit down, I’m almost done.”

“Just make sure you aren’t ruining my TV,” Mack replies, but does as Fitz asks, settling down on the couch and watching as the hint of tension that had started to gather in Fitz’s shoulders dissolves.

“You can trust me on this- I have a PhD- technically two, but- you know.”

“Actually I don’t,” Mack reminds him, “you’ve been vague on the details for just about everything.”

“Ah, I see.”

“Do you?”

Fitz makes a sort of aborted nod, and says clearer now, “I have two PhDs.”

“So, should I be calling you Doctor Fitz?”

“I don’t actively use them on a daily basis, but technically _yes._ ”

“Well, _Doctor_ , what are those PhDs in?”

Fitz has this adorably confused look on his face, as though the answer should have been obvious and the fact that Mack didn’t already know had left him blindsided, “mechanical engineering and astrophysics.”

Which was not what Mack had been expecting.

He knew that Fitz was smarter than he usually let on, but this was not something he had really considered.

“Why the hell are you running a cafe instead of teaching a class?”

Fitz freezes, his hands hovering over the machine. Mack can see his face distorted in the reflection of the TV screen, and it’s not a good look.

There’s a story there, he knows, the pieces to some puzzle that he’s not yet being granted access to.

“It’s complicated,” Fitz eventually answers, after what seems like an eternity.

“Sometimes I feel like I know nothing about you, which isn’t a bad thing, it just makes me curious.”

“Maybe that’s the point,” Fitz says, rolling his shoulders as he moves up from the floor, before settling beside Mack on the couch. , “or maybe I’m just not that interesting.”

“You’re plenty interesting,” Mack insists, ignoring Fitz’s dismissive snort he adds, “look, here, tell me something I don’t know about you.”

The other man rolls his eyes, but he does stop moving, scrunches up his face like he’s searching for something Mack doesn’t know about him- though it can hardly be a difficult task since Mack could count his _fun facts about Leopold Fitz_ on one hand.

Eventually though Fitz comes to some conclusion and says, “my favorite flavor of ice cream is banana,” like it’s some sort of deep confession.

“Banana,” he repeats, “really, Turbo? All the flavors in the world and you pick _banana.”_

“Oh yeah- what’s your favorite then?”

“Mint chip,” Mack answers, “otherwise known as the proper choice for favorite ice cream flavor.”

Fitz just groans, “that’s half the world’s favorite flavor.”

“Which means it’s good!”

“Which means,” Fitz corrects, “it’s the easy choice and shows that you’re completely uncreative.”

“Ouch, Turbo, I’m wounded.”

“Good,” he says grinning, “now sit down, shut up, and watch the movie.”

 

November 6th, 2014

He wakes up to the sound of _Taylor Swift_ playing in the other room, nearly an hour before his normal alarm.

It takes Mack a few seconds to remember why that is, but once the song cuts off, and he hears a familiar Scottish accent berating whoever is on the other end of the phone, it all sort of clicks.

Fitz had slept over last night, on his couch because Mack was a gentleman, and as much as he had wanted to kiss the other man senselessly and pull him into his room for a night of very passionate sex, he felt like that was a little too much for the first date.

Especially since he was ninety percent certain that Fitz hadn’t even considered their movie night a date.

There’s a knock on his bedroom door that has Mack getting up quickly, forgetting that he’s wearing nothing but his boxers until he opens the door and sees how quickly Fitz gets red in the face.

“I was going to make coffee, but your machine is shit,” Fitz says, once he’s recovered enough from his blushing, “so we need to drive to T.A.H.I.T.I.”

It’s too early _not_ to tease Fitz, and he can’t help but be purposely obtuse, tilting his lips into a smirk he says, “that’s a long drive, it would probably be easier to fly, though we’d need passports then-”

Fitz hits him on the arm playfully, “stop,” he says, but he’s grinning, “and I’m serious about the machine, I’m buying you a new one for Christmas- pretend to be surprised.”

“Got it, Turbo,” Mack grins, “should I go grab my keys?”

“That would be- but ah- pants,” Fitz says, his face turning red again, “you need pants.”

“Just pants?”

“Not _just_ pants,” he rolls his eyes, before shoving Mack back into his room. However, Fitz doesn’t leave like Mack would have expected, instead he stands there tapping his foot impatiently, and when Mack makes no motion to put on his clothing, Fitz lets out a dramatic sigh, “what do you need help?”

“You offering?”

“I- ah, that would be- your fashion sense is awful to begin with- I’m sure there’s nothing- and coffee-”

“Got it, got it,” Mack says holding his hands up in a way that he hopes conveys some sort of assurance to the other man, before throwing on something quick.

His keys are dangling from the other man’s fingers by the time that he’s dressed and Mack would almost be insulted by how badly Fitz wanted to leave his place, were the other man not chatting on so enthusiastically about the coffee he was going to make among other things.

“You’re pretty energetic first thing in the morning, aren’t you,” Mack says, as they head out to the parking garage.

And Fitz just shrugs his shoulders, bouncing in place as he says. “today’s just a good morning.”

 

November 8th, 2014

“Morning, _doc_.”

Fitz groans from behind the counter, shooting him a glare, “I honestly prefer Turbo.”

“In that case-”

“Though I don’t see why my name is a problem, if you could just-”

“No can do, Turbo,” Mack grins, “you’re stuck with the nickname.”

 

November 12th 2014

“So you slept together?”

“He slept over at my place, we didn’t-”

“But you wanted to,” she asks, turning from her bowl of noodles so fast that he hair whips around her face.

Before Mack can answer, Lance cuts in, “of course he did, Mack’s been crushing on that twink since first sight.”

“Sexual frustration at first sight, how sweet” Bobbi replies before adding, “you should’ve hooked up with him.”

“Thank you,” Lance agrees, waving a hand in her direction, “for once you talk sense.”

“You’re both awful,” Mack cuts them off, pointing his chopsticks at them in a vaguely threatening manner, “speaking of which, what are you both doing in the same room?”

The both give him a look like the answer should be obvious, and the fact that he hasn’t figured it out means he’s completely dense.

Finally Bobbi answers, “your garage is the neutral zone,” before correcting, “for now.”

“Wait- what do you mean for now?”

“I’m getting Mack in the divorce,” she answers, matter of fact, before turning back to her takeout.

“The hell you are!”

At least, with them arguing once more, any talk about Mack’s sex life (or lack thereof) is long forgotten.

 

November 14th 2014

“It’s my birthday and you know what that means?”

“That your parents forgot to wear a condom when they had Valentine’s Day sex?”

“I - wait, what?”

“What’s nine months after February,” Skye grins, clearly taking pleasure in watching the way Lance’s face freezes with this newfound realization.

“Oh bloody hell.”

“You’re a V-Day baby-”

“I don’t even want to get drunk anymore,” he says, eyebrows still scrunched up in some sort of horrified look of concentration, “actually, no wait, I want to get so drunk that I forget this conversation even happened.”

She laughs at him, “like you really need an excuse to drink.

“You two are coming too,” Lance says turning to where Fitz and Mack have been watching the exchange, “I need all my friends there to take pity on my now ruined mind and complete lack of a sex drive.”

Of course, Mack knew this was coming.

He knew this was coming since last night, when Lance texted him at midnight, very much drunk, with a message that Mack could make out as something to do with _much regrets_ and the need for _drinks and celebration_ , before he whined for eight more mostly illegible text messages about how old he was and how disappointing that was.

Mack had held off reminding him that out of the two of them Lance was the younger one, and had agreed to take him out for birthday drinks to ease his imaginary sorrows.

He just hadn’t realized that apparently Lance’s plans to get drunk on his birthday also aligned with his weird wingman plans, until he showed up in the evening just as Mack was closing the garage and casually suggested that they swing by for a _“cup o’joe”_ before getting _“thoroughly smashed.”_

“I can’t,” Skye says, making vague frowny faces at the group, “I work Fridays, remember?”

“Fitz? Mack” Lance asks, tilted his head in their direction

And Mack’s sure he isn’t seeing things, when out of the corner of his eye he notices Fitz looking at him as if waiting for some kind of guidance.

“I already told you, I’d go,” Mack reminds Lance.

The second he says the worst Fitz comes too as well saying, “drinks would be nice,” far too quickly so that the words sort of blur together.

Though that wouldn’t be the only thing that blurred together that night.

 

November 15th, 2014

It’s past midnight, the bartender making a call that this will be the last round, when a thin hand circles his wrist and tries to tug him up off his seat.

“What’s wrong, Turbo,” he asks, fixing the smaller man a concerned look.

Fitz didn’t say anything for a moment in reply, just stood there staring up at Mack, his face scrunched up in some sort of (probably drunk) contemplation.

“You okay there? Do you need me to-” the end of his sentence is swallowed up as Fitz pushes up onto his tiptoes and presses his lips to Mack’s.

And it’s been so long waiting for this to happen, so long coming that he can’t help himself, slipping an arm around Fitz’s waist to set him on one of the bar stools for easy access, not breaking the kiss as he does so, but instead deepening it until he feels like he’s nearly drowning in it.

This is exactly where he’s wanted to be for what felt like far too long, and there is nothing that could make him want to have his moment end.

Though like all moments eventually it must.

Mack finally pulls back when a loud, _“hey, if it isn’t the she demon herself,”_ cuts out loud across the music and jolts him back to reality.

Fitz still has that little confused look on his face, and Mack wants to kiss him again, he really does after waiting so long for this there is nothing that he would rather do more.

However instead of doing that, he just says, “you’re drunk,” squeezes Fitz’s shoulder like it’s nothing - like he isn’t slowly losing it on the inside.

Fitz nods weakly, and maybe he’s a lot more drunk that Mack had thought.

Though whether it is a good thing or a bad thing that Fitz might not remember this in the morning is not something that Mack can determine yet, so instead of dwelling on that he says, “we should probably go find the man of the hour.”

 

November 16th, 2014

“I’ve never regretted something so much in my life,” are the first words out of the other guy’s mouth when Mack opens the door to his apartment Sunday morning.

“Seems like that’s the theme of the weekend,” he replies for the other guy to come in.

“What’d you do?”

Mack didn’t really know how to explain that, though his eyes drifted to the phone that was sitting on his kitchen counter as though looking at it would will Fitz to reply to his texts. “

Something I regret,” Mack answers.

“You had sex with your soon to be ex-wife on top of your now signed divorce papers?”

“No, I- you did _what_ now?”

“I think I’m still in love with her,” Lance announces, “also I brought beer.”

 

November 17th, 2014

The coffee shop is busy in the morning, college students crowded around desks, drawn in by the sign taped to the door advertising _free Wi-Fi_. It’s so busy that the two people behind the counter, Skye and Callie, don’t even look up from their drink making at the sound to the bell to greet him.

Though his presence is noticed by the time he gets up to the counter, and before Mack can ask for a drink - or for Fitz who normally would have appeared from the back by now- Skye cuts him off already knowing his unspoken question, “he’s not here today.”

That was odd, Mack had never known Fitz to take a day off in his life, and especially can’t imagine that he would take a day off on one as busy as this, unless the reason he _wasn’t_ here was because of what had happened this weekend.

Seeing as his texts were still unanswered, Mack was leaning towards that as an answer.

“He okay?”

Skye makes some weird cross between a shake and a nod of her head, before asking, “you still want a drink?”

“Uh, sure,” Mack says, before adding, “Trip’s too.”

She reads off the price as usual and he hands over his credit card, practiced motions that they’ve been through too many times but something is wrong because he isn’t here.

He can’t help himself, so he ends up asking, “do you have any idea when he’ll be back?”

And at that Skye gives him one of the most sympathetic looks he’s ever seen.

“Sometimes his bad days go quickly, other times they last for a week,” she says, voice quiet so that only Mack can hear her, “I can’t say for sure, but I’ll let you know, alright?”

“That’d be great.”

“Oh and Mack?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re a really good friend,” Skye says, squeezing his hand with her much smaller one, before passing the coffee cups to him, “now drink your coffee and be happy.”

 

November 22nd, 2014

His phone goes off by time he’s already home for the evening, somehow still not asleep, but instead watching some terrible movie that’s on cable.

And for a second he thinks that he might be going crazy when he checks the phone and sees the name that’s flashing across the screen, because at this point it’s been a week and Mack was more than willing to have taken the hint.

The thought of that almost makes him hesitate for a moment before grabbing his phone and opening up the text message.

 _‘u busy rite now?_ ’ The message reads.

He knows that he’s smiling like an idiot, but Mack’s lucky and nobody is around to see.

_‘No. What’s up Turbo?’_

Mack has always been amazed by the speed at which Fitz could type, something to do with that crazy intelligent brain of his probably, _‘you wanna be?’_

He manages to shoot back a ‘ _What?’_ text before Fitz gets his answer all typed out.

_‘meteor shower 2nite. come back to iv. watch with me.’_

It’s nearing midnight and really Mack had been intended to get some sleep at some point tonight, but none of that seems to matter at the moment, because Fitz wants to see him. Typing back _‘See you soon,’_ is the only option that makes sense.

 

November 23rd, 2014

He parks his car in the garage, and before he can even get out Fitz has somehow materialized by his side.

Fitz looks a little more disheveled than he had the last time Mack saw him. There’s scruff on his chin and a blue beanie tugged down over his head so that most of his curls are hidden. His sweater is oversized and he keeps fidgeting with the sleeves as he waits for Mack to come with him.

Mack wants to say something, he’s not sure what, but they haven’t talked since Lance’s birthday and he knows he should say _something._

Though when Fitz says, “you ready,” and bounces up on his toes, Mack can’t be bothered to bring up any of the tough discussions they need to have.

Fitz leads the way through the town, past the college students heading two and from parties, and down a slightly overgrown path that looked for a second as though it would lead to the beach before turning up onto the cliffs that look out at the ocean.

The place where he eventually stops is a little alcove, where the fence that normally mars the cliff face has been pushed down and bent out of shape, and the grass cleared out to make a sort of private nook.

Every once and a flashlight will flash in their direction from the students down on the sand below or people following the beach trails keeping an eye out for raccoons with the light shining from their cell phone screens.

It’s quiet and peaceful, he can hear the waves crashing on the sandy shores below and he can hear Fitz breathing heavily beside him.

Eventually their silence breaks, Fitz pointing out to the sky and saying, “did you see that,” right as the crowd of students on the beach let out a noise of excitement.

Mack nods, and says, “yeah,” even though it’s a lie - he’d been too busy staring at Fitz to stare up at the stars.

The other man seems to sense that because he turns then to look at Mack, his smile a little bit of light in the otherwise dark night.

“Thanks,” Fitz says, “for coming out here with me.”

“It’s no big deal.”

“I was going to ask Skye, but she had work and- I didn’t know if you’d even come - figured you’d be mad at me for - for well, you know?”

“For disappearing for a week?”

Fitz ducks his head at that, “it’s complicated.”

“Oh yeah?”

“I’m a mess,” he insists, “I’m a terrible broken mess and-”

“Don’t say that,” Mack cuts him off, because his self-deprecating tone is so obviously painful that Mack needs to find a way to make it stop.

Fitz doesn’t say anything in reply, and after a moment he turns back up to look at the stars again. This time Mack tears his eyes away from the other man and does the same, waiting and watching until another star drops.

This time he’s the one to ask, “did you see it?”

And Fitz is the one that breathes out a, “yes,” in reply.

It takes three more shooting stars before Fitz speaks up again, “I wish this wasn’t awkward,” he says, tucking his jacket around his body tighter, as though he could bury himself in side of it.

“It wasn't awkward until you said something,” Mack points out, trying to keep his tone light, and though he cannot see Fitz’s expression in the dark he’s sure it’s something pointed towards annoyance. “Also you know, if you say your wish out loud it won’t come true.”

This time he can hear the other man’s snort, “it’s not like wishing on stars really works.”

“Don’t say that too loud,” he replies, “you’ll discourage all the students who’ve left the library to pray for the stars to give them good grades.”

“If only it were that easy.”

“Coming from the man with two PhDs-”

“Not that- the studying thing- that’s easy,” Fitz waves his hands about, hitting Mack’s shoulder as he does so, “no, I’m talking about everything else, the - the-”

“Wishing on stars to make everything work out right?”

“Yeah,” Fitz nods, “life’s not that easy.”

“True,” Mack agrees, “sometimes you just have to reach out and take what you want on your own.”

And they both know that they’re not having a casual conversation anymore, this isn’t about studying or any other mundane thing, it’s about the conversation that they should have had a week ago.

“If there was something I wanted,” Fitz says, choosing his words carefully, “then you would suggest that I just- I just-”

“Take it,” Mack nods, “its all carpe diem, seize the day, or I guess technically carpe noctem since it’s the night and-”

Whatever else he had to say was irrelevant because apparently Fitz was the type of person that liked to shut people up with kissing. The smaller man presses up against him, and everything else is forgotten or irrelevant as he bites at Mack’s bottom lip before deepening the kiss in an entirely breathless way.

It’s different from the last time because he’s sober now, and there’s no way Mack can even doubt that Fitz wants this.

That is until he pulls back slightly, and even though its dark Mack can see the conflict of the other man’s face, a look of pure want heavily contrasted with one of anxiety.

 

“We shouldn’t do this again,” he says eventually, though it’s with great reluctance that the words come from his lips.

He’s mere inches from Mack’s lips and Mack could easily silence his protests by kissing him again, but instead he holds back and asks, “why not?”

“Because,” Fitz draws out the word, “because I’m a mess- I’m broken and you don’t - nobody does - deserves a wreck like me.”

“You’re not a wreck,” Mack protests, “you’re perfect.”

“I’m _not_ ,” he insists.

“Give me a chance to change your mind.”

“I- you don’t- you won’t-”

“I will,” Mack says, sensing the self-doubt in Fitz’s wavering voice and knowing that he has to do something to fix it.

“New Year’s,” Fitz says after a moment.

And that causes Mack to blink in confusion, “what?”

He huffs, but leans forward to press a far too chaste kiss to Mack’s lips, “nothing serious- we’re not- but sometimes we could,” he pauses, “and on New Year’s I’ll give you my answer.”

“Your answer?”

“The one that- that if you can change my mind.”

He nods his head, “so it’s a challenge?”

“I could have Siri make an event.”

“Don’t,” Mack says, because the notion is so Fitz and almost makes him want to laugh, though at the moment laughing is not the only thing Mack wants to do, “to be clear, I could start trying to convince you now?”

Fitz nods his head, and that’s all Mack needs before he’s leaning forward again resuming their kissing with a newfound intensity.

The shooting stars in the sky are all but forgotten.

 

November 24th, 2014

There’s nothing notably different when he goes into the coffee shop the next morning, everybody is still buzzing about, college students typing frantically at their laptops while Skye and Callie make coffee for the masses.

Fitz does appear this time, giving Mack a little smile, the only thing the tells him that Saturday night (or technically Sunday morning) wasn’t just some crazy fantasy of his, before handing him a his personalized drink.

 

November 25th, 2014

He’s not sure what convinces him to do it.

Probably the call he gets first thing in the morning reminding him that their usual Thanksgiving plan is still on and a list of people coming up to celebrate the holiday along with a reminder that he is under no circumstances allowed to ditch them.

To be clear her exact words had been _“If you leave Tori and I to deal with the horse shit, I will find you and chop your dick off’_ , but really she had meant that in a fond way- at least, he hoped that she had.

He had followed it up by asking if he could bring a plus one, then dodging all of the poking and prodding from his friends in regards to the secret identity of his plus one, before finally getting an answer of ‘ _just make sure he likes Chinese food.’_

Though he’s standing around in the coffee shop the next afternoon as Fitz makes his coffee, the crowd a bit less today than it had been the day before, when he blurts out, “what are you doing for Thanksgiving?”

Fitz looks up from the machine, tilting his head to the side a bit, before replying, “uh, nothing? Skye’s making me close the shop, because apparently American’s don’t get coffee the weekend of Thanksgiving-”

“They don’t,” she shouts from somewhere on the couches.

“-But other than that,” Fitz shrugs, “I’ll just be here.”

Mack means to ask Fitz to come join them, but for some reason the next words out of his mouth are, “do you like Chinese food?”

Fitz blinks at him, lips tilting up into a little smile, “are these two points related?”

“Yes.”

“Then, yes.”

“Do you want to get some with me?”

“Right now,” Fitz asks.

“No, I mean, for Thanksgiving.”

This time the confused look is back, “I thought you all ate turkey for Thanksgiving.”

Everything is coming all out of order, and Mack really should have led in with this differently, but there’s no choice now but to keep on explaining.

“There’s a group of us, without family around or _around_ , that meet up every Thanksgiving to grab Chinese food at this one restaurant that’s always open.”

“Why?”

“It’s like Jews on Christmas,” Mack says, because that was how it had been explained to him when Lance and Bobbi had dragged him to the first of these holidays years ago, “except last year with the whole Thanksgiving-Hanukkah thing was happening at the same time, and Izzy brought so much Challah that I ate nothing but that and left over take out for a week afterward.”

“That sounds weird,” Fitz says, but he’s still smiling, and after a moment he nods his head a bit, “but I’d like to join you, if you’d still like me to.”

“I’m the one that offered, man.”

“I- well yes, but I thought you might- changed your mind or-” Fitz laughs a little bit, “Thanksgiving sounds great.”

 

November 27th, 2014

“What if they all hate me?”

“Turbo, they’re my friends, not my _parents_ ,” Mack says, in an attempt to reassure him, feeling best not to mention that these people are practically family to him, “anyways you already know Lance, and the rest will love you, don’t even worry.”

He’s still fidgeting a bit, but he bumps his shoulder into Mack’s side in a little bit of protest and says, “if they hate me you have to take me out for apology ice cream later.”

“Done deal,” Mack agrees, already writing _ice cream date_ down in his mental calendar, “now come on, there’s a carton of orange chicken with your name on it in there.”

“I don’t even like orange chicken,” Fitz says, but his words are swallowed up by the sound of the people inside as they push their way into the little Chinese restaurant, empty save for the crowd of people taking up one of the tables.

He’s pretty sure he hears Lance exclaim, “Mack brought his twink,” before he’s swept up into a hug by Izzy who then fusses over Fitz insisting that she’s heard so much about him - even though Mack is certain that he’s told her absolutely nothing. Though same can’t be said for some of the other people in the room who have met Fitz, and who are both grinning at him like Cheshire Cats.

“Hey, don’t smother him,” Mack says, when he turns back around to notice that Fitz is being boxed in by a variety of people, eager to meet the newest addition to their celebrations.

“It’s fine, I’m fine,” Fitz insists, waving him off, “go say hi to your people- I’ll be fine.”

And later he’s not even sure why he had thought to doubt Fitz’s insistence, not when they’re all sitting around the table, stuffing their faces with Chinese food. Fitz having an animated conversation with Jasper over the ups and downs of running a restaurant versus cafe, while Mack grills Idaho on the ups and downs of graduate school.

Though more important than all of that, is the hand that had strayed from table at some point, and found its way into Mack’s wrapping their fingers together.

He’s never been so thankful for a Thanksgiving until the day he brought Fitz with him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes will go here later, when I'm not about to drive six hours to go home for the holidays.


	4. December

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big thanks to everybody for the super incredible supportive messages after that last chapter! Here is something that I hope will help with the possible pain of tomorrow/tonight's episode (depending on your time zone)! 
> 
> Also when you get to the beach scene possibly listen to "Out On The Town" by fun. because it was what I read while I wrote that scene.

 

December 1st, 2014

When he walks into the coffee shop Monday morning, it’s like a Christmas store had exploded inside there.

There’s a giant tree taking up much of the space, the usual blackboard are decorated with a Santa Claus scene and various holiday related quotes, there’s lights and tinsel and the usual holiday music blasting through the speakers.

Standing behind the counter are two women who light up at the sight of Mack wishing him a “Happy Christmas First,” their matching Santa hats bobbing up and down as they moved about behind the counter.

“At least you waited till after Thanksgiving,” Mack says, with a laugh looking around the place, still trying to take everything in.

“Only because Fitz insisted,” Skye explains, “I would have done this back in November but-”

There’s a groan, announcing Fitz’s opinion on the matter before he even appears from the back.

“But,” Skye continues with renewed vigor, “somebody is a _Grinch!_ ”

“I thought I was Scrooge,” Fitz asks.

“Same difference,” she nods her head, “ruiner of the Christmas spirit, you know I feel bad for you Mack-”

“Why?”

“Well, because-”

“Skye,” Fitz cuts her off abruptly, “don’t you have lights to string up or something?”

She lets out a little laugh at him and says, “yeah okay,” before turning to Mack with a wink, “we’ll talk later then?”

“Uh, sure?”

 

December 2nd, 2014

“You look like a wet dog,” Mack says, first thing in greeting, which isn’t the most charming thing he’s ever said, nor the most eloquent, but there’s Fitz standing in the middle of his garage in a practically soaked flannel with a subpar hood, his curls soaked and plastered to his head and a glare that’s just a touch of charming on his face - really in Mack’s defense it’s hard to think of very eloquent answers when presented with that sight.

“I’m soaked from literally crossing the street,” Fitz points out, “everything is awful.”

“Why’d you come over here in the middle of this storm,” Mack asks.

The answer he gets in return is too much of a mumbled and jumbled mess for Mack to make out, so he arches an eyebrow in the other guy’s direction, and waits until Fitz speaks again.

This time he takes a long deep breath, before saying, still in a rush and quiet, but at least this time able to be understood, “I wanted to see you.”

He must have the biggest stupidest grin of his face, because Fitz goes bright red looking at him and says, “ _shut up_ , okay- I just, you didn’t come in earlier-”

“Cause it’s raining up a storm out there.”

“I know. I know, but- I missed you, and now I’m here,” he gestured at all of himself, “and cold, and soaking wet, and probably going to catch pneumonia.”

“Well then,” Mack draws out the words, “I guess we’ll just have to find some way to warm you up.”

“Oh yes- I that was part of my- my plan,” Fitz chitters, leaning in towards Mack, and Mack can’t even find it in him to mind when his wet jacket presses up against Mack’s skin.

“First step, should probably be getting you out of your wet things,” Mack points out, and it’s only when Fitz jolts beside him, kind of leaning away, that it hits Mack what his words might have meant, “in a mostly platonic way.”

“Mostly,” he asks, looking up at Mack with slightly more than eager eyes.

He nods, “we’re platonically getting you into something warm that I’ve got laying around, after that I’m going to casually switch the sign on the front of the garage from open to closed, and then-”

“Please tell me non-platonic make outs are coming up at some point on that itinerary?”

Mack laughs, “you beat me to it!”

“That’s my job,” Fitz grins, “it’s why you call me Turbo!”

 

December 3rd, 2014

His phone goes as preparing breakfast the next morning, with a message from Fitz reading: ‘ _why is it rain, makes me want to stay in bed all day??’_

It’s a silly mostly meaningless message, but it makes Mack smile.

 _‘If you don’t get up then you won’t get to see me.’_ He types back before he can stop himself.

Fitz’s reply comes at lightning speed ‘ _you could join me! :)’_ a second later joined by another message of ‘ _not like that.’_

Mack laughs, moving to send some sort of reply, when his phone buzzes again, Fitz ever persistent, _‘next time it rains tho. i might mean it like that.’_

_‘You’re killing me, Turbo.’_

He can imagine Fitz’s laugh in the back of his mind, when the other guy replies, ‘ _that was the plan.’_

 

December 5th, 2014

It’s still raining as the weekend rolls around, and Fitz shows up first thing in the morning, eager and bouncing on his toes as he takes in the empty garage.

“It’s raining,” Fitz announces.

“Uh yeah,” Mack nods his head, “should I switch from calling you Turbo to Captain Obvious or-”

“You should close up shop for a bit,” Fitz says, “I mean- it’s raining, nobody’s coming- you need coffee and so-”

“You could have just brought some over when you crossed the street,” Mack points out.

“But where’s the fun in that,” he asks, with a little grin.

Mack can’t really find a reason to object, so he nods his head, and goes to grab his wallet from one of the tables, but not before giving Fitz a once over and saying, “nice jacket.”

The other man goes red under his gaze, “Skye bought it for me- a joke, I think- but it keeps me dry.”

“It’s cute,” he says, though he means _you’re cute_.

Fitz just scoffs, “come on you need coffee.”

“Yeah, yeah, alright, let me just grab some things.”

As he moves about the garage closing things up, pocketing his wallet, among other things - he can’t seem to stop himself from time to time looking over to where Fitz is still standing, bouncing up and does on his toes in that obviously yellow rain coat. Mack really is in this too deep, because he’s pretty sure there’s nobody else in the world that Mack could have found cute in something so obnoxious.

“You ready,” Mack asks.

“I was ready the whole time,” Fitz reminds him, moving to bump his shoulder into Mack like he has many times before, but instead he darts out his hand, grabbing onto Mack’s and weaving their fingers together.

It wasn’t anything special really, but it didn’t stop him from smiling like a fool as they hurried across the street to the coffee shop dodging the rain and the few bikers that had been foolish enough to go out in this weather.

“I hate the rain,” Fitz announces once they finally make it into the coffee shop, slipping his hand out of Mack’s to tug the hood of his raincoat down, “it gets everything all wet-” behind the counter Skye snickers, “and I hate the wet.”

“I thought you were British-”

“ _Scottish_!”

“Scottish,” he corrects, “doesn’t it rain all the time over there.”

Fitz snorts, “why do you think I left?”

“You know, Turbo, we’re in a drought, a little rain is actually a good thing.”

“It’s been four _bloody_ days- it stopped being a little bit of rain Tuesday afternoon,” he protests.

Before Mack can say anything else to rile Fitz up, Skye cuts in, “are you boys wanting me to get you drinks or was the plan just to stand there and flirt with each other.”

“We were,” Fitz starts then stops, his face coloring, “I’m not- I mean we’re- upstairs, we’re going upstairs.”

He looks up towards Mack for reassurance, though Mack just raised an eyebrow in reply, “don’t look at me, you’re the one that dragged me over here.”

Fitz nods his head at that and says, more confidently this time, “we’re going upstairs,” already heading for the backroom, and Mack follows him with one last wave in Skye’s direction.

She just calls out, “use protection,” at their backsides.

He follows Fitz in near silence as the other man navigates the messy backroom of T.A.H.I.T.I., before leading him up the tight stairwell to the little apartment that he calls his own.

“Should I have taken Skye’s comment about using protection more seriously,” Mack jokes as they end up in Fitz apartment.

Fitz just rolls his eyes though, before pulling his little rain coat all the way off.

“Is that a yes or-”

“Not today,” Fitz finally answers him, “today I am proving my point that a rainy day is best spent under the blankets- not like _that_ ,” he says quickly realizing how that could have been interpreted and flushing, “cuddling! I want to cuddle- maybe make out a bit- somewhere that it’s nice and warm, no the back of one of those old cars you work on.”

“Ouch, I feel like I should be insults on behalf of my vintage-”

“Yeah yeah,” he cuts Mack off waving his hand, “or you could get over here and cuddle me.”

“You know, I don’t actually think we’ll both fit on that bed,” and he’s only partially teasing as he says it, because Fitz has probably the smallest bed he’s ever seen.

“We’ll make due,” Fitz just says, before pressing up onto his tiptoes, and Mack can’t stop himself from leaning down to meet Fitz half-way.

And even though Mack ends up being right about them barely fitting  on the bed, it doesn’t matter, because Fitz is pressed up against his side, talking about everything and nothing at all while the rain pours down outside.

 

December 7th, 2014

There’s a knock on the door of his garage, and even though Mack shouts, “it’s open,” at the door the person doesn’t come in.

With a noise of reluctance, Mack pushes himself out from under his current project, wipes the grease off on his hands, and goes to grab the door, only to find Fitz on the other side, staring up at him with a smile on his face.

“I thought you didn’t work on Sundays,” is the first thing Fitz says, when he finds Mack on the other side.

“You knocked on the door expecting me not be here?”

“No, I- I saw your car,” Fitz says, “so I thought- I wanted to- say hi and come watch the sunset with me.”

“The sunset?

“It’s supposed to be really nice today,” Fitz says, “the first sunset after the storm’s end are always really nice.”

“Yeah, okay,” Mack says, stepping out of the garage and closing it behind him, “let’s go watch the sunset.”

 

December 8th, 2014

“Mistletoe,” Skye says excitedly, pointing up at the door way that Fitz and Mack had happened to stand under at the same time, “that means you two have to kiss!”

“Yes, because it’s not like we haven’t done that before,” Fitz says with just the right hint of snark.

“Nope, never,” Mack teasingly agrees.

“Should we awkwardly fumble and bump noses,” Fitz asks.

“Most definitely.”

There’s an overdramatic gagging noise from behind the counter, and Skye quickly says, “never mind, you two are obnoxious and gross, please stop.”

Fitz just laughs, and keeps laughing even when Mack leans down to kiss him, grinning like a fool the whole time.

 

December 10th, 2014

“So you two are still-”

“Yes,” Lance says, just as Bobbi replies, “of course.”

“Getting a divorce,” Mack finish his sentence in a tone that’s has just a hint of disbelief, looking between the two people currently sitting in his garage eating pizza, sitting so close together on the hood of one of the cars, that they were practically touching.

“That date’s set for January,” Bobbi continues, “almost everything’s been settled with the lawyers.”

“It’s almost a relief,” Lance nods his head, “in a little over a month I’ll finally be free of you.”

“I’m counting the days,” she agrees.

Their tones are far too fond, and he’s their friend, but really there’s only one way all of this can go and it’s awfully. He imagines the fallout from this will be even worse than their initial one had been.

“Right well,” Mack says, looking between them, “feel free to completely ignore my advice, but it may not be the best idea to be sleeping with the person you're about to get a divorce from?”

“Who says we’re sleeping together,” Lance says far too quickly.

And Bobbi a second later says, “it was only that one time.”

He doesn’t believe either of them for a second, but rather than pushing the point he grabs another piece of pizza and says, “sure you’re not.”

 

December 12th, 2014

“This is insane,” Mack says looking around the coffee shop, where every inch is filled with students, either or laptops or with textbooks opened, all looking a bit like they want to die.

He’s not used to this sight.

Sure, he knew it was coming- he’s worked in a college town long enough to expect the blurred eyed students to appear at every place that offers Wi-Fi whenever the test times roll around, the thing is never before would he have ventured to one of those places willingly during this time of year.

He’d already given Trip the rest of December off, as things around the garage were pretty much dead, only Mack’s personal projects took up any real space and he would soon be closing the shop for the break while the students were away.

But while the garage is dead, the coffee shop is the exact opposite of that.

The line behind the counter is about eight people deep, and he wouldn’t have even come over here, had it not for the fact that he was running on very few hours of sleep after having listened to Bobbi rant to him over the phone until nearly three in the morning the night before.

Though judging by the sights around him, he wasn’t the only one sleep deprived.

The weird thing about the place being this busy isn’t just the high count of people in here, but also the fact that when as he gets closer to the counter in line, he notices that Fitz is already out of the back room hurriedly helping Skye and Callie with the drinks - both who look a bit over worked and exasperated.

It’s kind of weird because the last time he had seen Fitz dressed properly in one of those barista aprons was over a month ago.

He’s obviously far gone with how much he likes Fitz, because the more Mack watches him, the more he finds the whole sight wonderful and adorable.

Mack doesn’t even doubt that he is grinning like a fool when he gets to the front of the line and Fitz gets out the robotic, “may I help you,” before looking up, realizing its Mack and lighting up, “hey, you.”

“Hey,” he replies, before tilting his head towards the shop, “guess you’re getting all that business that you assured me would one day appear.”

“Is this the part where I - I say I told you so?”

“I think it’s the part where you make me the strongest drink you’ve got,” Mack says.

And Fitz for his part just laughs a little, “well, I did tell you so, but I can do that too.”

 

December 16th, 2014

He’s smarter than to head back over to T.A.H.I.T.I. while the shop is actually open until finals week is over, but keeping away from Fitz is more difficult than it sounds and when the night before Fitz has texted him a simple ‘ _miss you’_ text, Mack knew it was time to swing back over there.

They had just agreed that coming after the shop was closed and grabbing some ice cream or something was the way to go.

Which was why Mack was closing up his garage, and opening the door to the café, ignoring the sign saying that it’s closed. The only people on the inside are two barista’s cleaning up the cafe, who are so caught up in their music that they hardly notice Mack until he says, “are you singing Frozen?”

“What? No! it was just on the radio,” Donnie says instantly turning pale and looking about as horrified as he had that first time that Mack had met the college student, “I’ll call Fitz for you, hold on.”

“Don’t worry, I got it, Elsa,” Seth smirks, slapping his coworker on the shoulder, before slipping into the backroom.

“I’m not Elsa,” he says quickly, face now turning from a pale white to a very distinct red.

“Sure you’re not,” Mack teases.

“It’s Finals Week,” he says quickly in his defense, “my brain is fried and we were closed anyways!”

“I know,” Mack points out, before remembering, “Happy Hanukkah, by the way.”

Donnie looks genuinely surprised that Mack had remembered that.

So he feels the need to offer an explanation, “an old friend of mine is Jewish, she blew up Facebook today demanding that we all wish her a Happy Hanukkah, before calling us heathens,” though as he said that he quickly realized that it made Izzy sound a bit less stable than she was- which was absurd because Isabelle Hartley was one of the most normal people he had managed to become friends with.

That wasn’t saying too much though, Mack tended to like the weird ones.

Speaking of which, Fitz had finally appeared from the backroom, bundled up in a pea coat and scarf, looking adorably warm.

“You ready to go?”

“I’ve been ready,” Fitz insists, stubbornly, “I was waiting on you.”

“Course you were, Turbo,” he says, slipping an arm over the shorter man’s shoulder to lead him out the door, and using his other arm to give a farewell wave to Fitz’s employees.

It’s not that cold of a night, but Fitz presses up against his side like it’s freezing and Mack might have been worried about that, if he wasn’t so smitten.

“So ice cream or froyo,” Mack asks as they walk down the street towards the other shops.

“The fact that you even had to ask,” Fitz starts just shaking his head, “who even chooses _froyo_ ,” the way he says the word makes it sound like a personal insult.

“Sorority girls?”

“Do I look like a sorority girl?”

“Well,” Mack draws out the word, just to watch the way Fitz gets all flustered.

“You are the - the - uh-”

“Best person ever?”

“Opposite,” Fitz says, but he doesn’t pull away from Mack so he doesn’t mean it.

“Would the worst person ever be about to buy you a cookiewich, even though you have terrible taste in ice cream flavors?”

He pauses as though considering it, “oh probably, if he wanted to fatten me up.

Mack laughs, “you have a super human metabolism, that’s impossible.”

“It’s not super human-”

“And if I wanted to do that I would take you out to dinner,” Mack says, hoping he’s not pressing too much there. They’ve already done bagels as Fitz’s place, coffee numerous times, and this ice cream is kind of a step for them. He doesn’t want to move too fast and startle Fitz, because he always seems a few seconds away from that.

“We could do lunch first,” Fitz replies a bit cautiously, “this weekend maybe?”

“This weekend sounds perfect,” Mack says, hoping he doesn’t sound overbearingly eager, even though he feels pretty damn eager.

“Great,” Fitz echoes, then bumps his hip into Mack’s like he always does and says, “but first ice cream, right?”

“Or froyo,” Mack teases, just to hear the way Fitz groans at him and fondly calls him _“the worst”_ again.

 

December 20th, 2014

He had kind of spent the night before planning everything out, psyching himself out a bit, even though the feeling was foolish because Mack had taken plenty of guys out on dates before, it was just, none of those guys had been Fitz.

Fitz was different, a little weird, a huge nerd, stuttering whenever he got nervous and acting a bit fidgety - not at all Mack’s usual type.

But maybe that was what made him so much better.

He’s about to head out the door, when his phone goes off and thankfully Mack opens the text before heading down the stairs, so he’s able to stop what he’s doing and double back to his apartment.

 _‘I need to cancel lunch_ ’ Fitz’s text reads.

It’s not the message that bothers Mack. A part of him had thought that even though finals ended the day before the cafe still might end up getting busy or that Fitz, with his obvious anxieties that Mack hasn’t found a way to ask about yet, would want to back out on his own.

What bothers him is the switch in his usual typing style.

It doesn’t take a genius for Mack to figure out, what with the way Fitz is always speaking into his phone and making commands of it, that this is another instance of him doing just that.

Of course there were plenty of reasonable explanations for this, like Fitz was working in the cafe and couldn’t reach his phone so he used voice commands or- or something was wrong.

He tries to make sure his text sounds as casual as possible when he replies, ‘ _Everything okay at the shop?’_

His text comes far slower than usual: _‘Yes, all is fine. It’s me that’s not fine. Bad day.’_

Mack frowns at his screen, _‘Do you want me to come over and cheer you up? We don’t have to go out anywhere.’_

He sends the message, waits a mere second, before he’s typing up another, some options or things that he thinks might help cheer Fitz up.

He’s beaten to it, lightning fast comes Fitz’s reply of ‘ _no’_ , and Mack waits until another text comes in, more delayed, following it that says, _‘Health problems. Not a big deal. I’ll be fine in a few days. Sorry’_

Mack wants to mention that this sounds like a bit of a big deal, but he also doesn’t want to upset Fitz, so he just sends back ‘No need to be sorry. _Feel better, Turbo.’_

_‘I’ll try.’_

 

December 21st, 2014

He stares at his phone most of Sunday, but no reply or explanation comes from Fitz and Mack tries not to let it get to him, but they had been going so good, things had been working out well and Mack really thought that this was going to turn into the _real_ deal sooner rather than later.

Truth be told he had been considering it the real deal since the night they watched the stars together, but he knew Fitz wasn’t feeling the same just yet, so he was willing to be patient.

Doesn’t mean he wasn’t already making plans to head up to the cafe tomorrow morning.

 

December 22nd, 2014

Mack had never actually seen T.A.H.I.T.I. closed until that morning, standing in front of the door where a closed sign had been taped to it from the inside, reading that the shop would reopen after the new year.

He stares at the sign for ten minutes before pulling out his phone and texting Fitz, _‘You at the shop today?’_

Fitz’s reply doesn’t come for a good two minutes and Mack considers just leaving and forgetting it, until he does get a text, _‘Sorry. Still sick. Shop’s closed till New Year.’_

Which yeah, Mack knew because he’s outside, sitting on one of those benches along the sidewalk.

 _‘Want me to bring you some soup?’_ Mack offers.

After a moment, Fitz’s reply comes, _‘Thanks but its not that kind of sick.’_

He wonders what sick it could be then, yet another mystery to add to his ever list of unanswered questions about Leopold Fitz. That man was an enigma, but an enigma that Mack could not seem to stay away from.

He doesn’t reply to that, tucks the phone back in his pocket, and makes his way down the road to a yoga studio that he knows the sole owner of will be lurking around in, no doubt able to keep Mack entertained for a few hours since he was over this way anyways.

An hour and two drinks later, even though it’s not even noon yet, he gets another text message from Fitz, simply readying ‘ _miss you.’_

 

December 24th, 2014

He doesn’t really expect anything, it’s like last time he supposes, they were moving too fast and suddenly Fitz was backing off and running for the hills.

Okay, maybe that was an exaggeration, but that was what it felt like from his end of things.

Which was why he was pleasantly surprised when things changed, when while eating a terrible Christmas Eve dinner of leftover pizza, there was a knock at his door.

His first thought was that it would be Bobbi or Lance, both of which had invited him out with them for Christmas Eve, separately of course, and he had turned them down insisting he was not choosing sides.

Mack already had the polite refusal ready when he opened up his door to find the person on the other side, not the one he was expecting.

Not that he could have remembered any of those words, once he opened the door and saw Fitz on the other side, looking a little bit more anxious than usual, with a slightly red nose, two sweaters on, and a backpack slung over his shoulder. He had a plastic bag in his hand that he was gripping so tightly that his knuckles and turned red, but he just look so relieved to see that Mack had opened up the door.

“You actually opened up,” Fitz says, sort of breathless, “I had thought you might- might not- or be home with family- out with Lance maybe- but you’re here and _thank god_.”

“Yeah, I’m here,” Mack smiles, “you want to come in or-”

“Please,” Fitz says, before wiggling into the gap between Mack and the door frame.

He makes himself at home like he did the last time Mack let him in here, setting the bag he had brought with him on Mack’s kitchen counter before taking a spot on the couch and looking at Mack expectantly.

So much for his dinner of leftover pizza.

“Speaking of which,” Mack says, keep their conversation cautious and safe, as he settles down onto the other side of the couch, “how did you get in here? There’s a gate around the apartment complex and unless you have the key code, you’re locked out.”

“Oh,” Fitz says, straight faced, “I hopped it.”

“You did what now?”

His straight face lasts about ten more seconds, before he snickers a bit, “last time you invited me over, I might have peaked as you were typing it in and memorized it.”

Well that certainly made more sense, “put that genius brain of yours to use.”

“Something like that,” Fitz agrees.

The silence stretched between them for a moment, and Mack breaks it by saying, “so not that I mind but-”

“I missed you,” Fitz cuts him off, eyes wide and silently pleading with Mack not to push the subject, “I was miserable- and I missed you- and I understand if you have to leave or want me to leave- I’ve been- been distant and cryptic, I _know._ ”

“You know?”

“This wouldn’t be the first time, people have wanted to give up on me, because I’m a broken mess.”

“You’re not broken,” Mack says, hating the way Fitz says those words, like he means to punish himself with them.

“Well, I’m not in proper working order either,” Fitz says bitterly, his fingers curling up into little fists.

“So what,” he says suddenly.

Watching the way Fitz’s face goes from frustration with himself, to this sudden sort of wide eyed confusion, “so what,” he echoes a bit disbelieving.

“So sometimes you stutter a bit, and the words escape you, but that doesn’t mean you’re damaged.”

“It doesn’t?”

He hates the fact that the words sound like a question as Fitz says them, whoever had hurt him enough to make him think that way really was going to get a talking to if Mack ever met them, but for now he had Fitz to look after it.

“It doesn’t,” he insists.

“What if- what if it’s more complicated than you think?”

“I don’t care how complicated it is,” Mack says, “that won’t stop me from liking you, from wanting to spend time with you, or from wanting to be with you.”

“Promise?”

He feels a little bit silly when he sticks out his pinky, but when Fitz cracks a little grin, he knows it was the right choice.

“Promise,” he says, when the other man slips his finger around Mack’s, “now that all settled?”

Fitz nods his head once, before scooting across the expanse of the couch to curl up against Mack’s side, “can I stay over here, tonight? There aren’t any buses back by now and-”

“Of course, you can.”

“I was going to bribe you with cookies and wine if you refused,” Fitz confesses.

“That’s what was in your grocery bag.”

He nods against Mack’s chest, “you know they charged me for that bag.”

“It’s cause we live by the ocean, plastic bags kill fishes.”

“They also kill my wallet,” Fitz says stubbornly, curling in closer to Mack, “I really did miss you.”

“Missed you too, Turbo.”

 

December 25th 2014

Waking up in the morning to Fitz curled up against him was just about the best thing in the world, or it would have been had they been on his bed rather than the cramped little couch. But even the fact that he’s probably going to have a kink in his back for the next couple days, doesn’t seem to matter, when a sleepy Fitz blinks up at him in confusion before settling on a sweet smile.

“Happy Christmas,” Fitz says, kissing him, and Mack couldn’t even bring himself to care about morning breath.

“Merry Christmas,” Mack replies, when Fitz finally pulls back, “you have any plans us for today?”

Fitz nods his head, but instead of leaning back in for more kisses like Mack had hoped he sits up, so that he’s practically straddling Mack, which is going to become a problem sooner rather than later and says, “Hey Siri.”

When Mack groans, he gets poked in his chest for his troubles.

“How may I assist you?

“When is high tide?”

“Why do we need,” Mack starts to ask, only to be silence, but Fitz’s hands over his lips.

“High tide will be at 10:48 AM.”

“And what time is it now,” Fitz asks.

“It is 9:11 AM.”

“Thank you, Siri.”

When Fitz finally removes his hand from Mack’s face he says, “I can’t believe you thank it.”

“ _He_ deserves thanks,” Fitz says, “unlike somebody else-”

“Ouch, Turbo.”

“Now, go get dressed, grab my present- assuming you got me one- it’s cool if you didn’t-”

“I did,” Mack assures him.

“Good cause I - I did too,” he nods, rolling to get up off the couch, “now come on, we have places to go, lunches to have, oceans to be amazed at.”

“We’re going to the beach during high tide?”

“Ideally before that, if you can hurry it up,” Fitz says, grabbing his backpack from the ground before shooting Mack another expectantly look which finally has him up off the couch and getting ready.

Fitz offers no other explanation about his plans, even though Mack bugs him while he’s getting dressed, and once they head out the door and into Mack’s car the only answer he gets is to drive to T.A.H.I.T.I. and that he can park over there.

Though they don’t head to the coffee shop instead they move along the abandoned streets of this college town, until they hit the edge of town where the cliffs meet the ocean and sandy beaches below.

They doesn’t stop on the cliffs though, instead Fitz tugs Mack towards one of their stairwells, “these stairs always freak me out,” he confesses, his fingers tightening around Mack’s, “I always worry that I could slip and fall down them forever.”

“You planning to drag me down with you when you go?”

“Oh no,” he says, squeezing Mack’s hand, “I was hoping you’d be able to save me.”

“I can do that.”

“You sound very sure of that,” Fitz teases, but they’re at the bottom of the steps anyways, so it doesn’t matter much.

He extracts his hand from Fitz’s reluctantly to take off his shoes, eyes sweeping across the beach which he has never actually seen this empty before, but he supposes with all the college students home for the holiday and all the families at home celebrating with their kids under a Christmas tree it sort of makes sense.

“Come on,” Fitz says, and when Mack looks back to him he finds the other man at the ocean’s edge.

Fitz rolls up the bottom of his skinny jeans, tugging the fabric up his calves so that the waves don’t hit the material. The waves hit against his ankles, a breath leaves his lungs, with arms stretch out like he’s reaching for the sky or coming home, or both at the same time.

He looks completely at peace with himself and the world.

It’s a captivating view.

A view that Mack can easily get lost in, wondering to himself, when this all happened, when did they get to the point where standing on the beach together on Christmas morning seemed like one of the best moments of his life.

He’s not ready to say the words out loud, not ready to scare Fitz away, but he knows in that moment that he’s in love, and really it’s just been a long time coming.

“Come on,” Fitz says again, holding out his hand for Mack to take, a hand that he cannot refuse.

Their hands fit together so naturally, and he lets himself be playfully ‘tugged’ along, down the beach towards a familiar outcropping of stones.

Fitz easily scampers up the stones at Campus Point, only able to reach the outer ones because of the lower tide.

“We’ll get trapped up here if we don’t get back before the tide rises,” Mack muses as he follows Fitz up onto the rocks.

“Who says that isn’t the point,” he just replies, adjusting the strap on his backpack.

“Touché.”

“I have lunch in my bag,” Fitz continues.

“Lunch?”

“Snacks, really,” Fitz confesses, “and I made you something special, I mean, it’s simple but- but yes”.

“I’ll love it,” he says, like he wants to say _I love you_ , and he wonders if Fitz notices, but the other man has turned back to the ocean again like it’s the most wonderful thing in the world.

From where Mack stands, watching Fitz stand out against the rocks the waves beginning to splash up against them, he could almost imagine that they were the only people in the world, and well wouldn’t that be wonderful.

He wishes that he could live in this moment forever.

But as time must it goes on, the waves hit the rocks splashing up against Fitz’s bare feet, and he turns to Mack once more saying, “what are you doing?

“Admiring the view,” he confesses.

“Oh yes, of course, the ocean’s really something magnificent, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, you are,” Mack replies, low enough that Fitz can’t hear him.

 

December 30th, 2014

There’s an excited voicemail on his phone, that Mack regrets opening up, because he’s pretty sure Lance recorded it drunk, “You and the twink. Tomorrow night, New Year’s, man? This is going to be the shit or the _shit_ ,” he laughs a little bit at his own pun, “I know you’re asleep like a fucking old man, but tomorrow you two are coming to my New Year’s bash because Bobbi and Skye are both going to be there-” that’s right, Fitz mentioned that Skye was coming back to town early because of one of her other jobs and Lance had been talking about how this was finally his chance, “and I have to kiss once of them, and you have to kiss the twink, and 2015 has to suck me, you feel?” He didn’t feel or even understand Lance when he was drunk, but this was a voice mail and Mack didn’t really have a chance to say anything. “Text me, mate, we got plans to make!”

He stares at his phone when the message ends, before regrettably clicking the reply button, getting nothing really relevant out of a second listen either; he eventually gives up and sends Lance a _‘How hungover are you right now?’_ text.

‘ _Too hungover_ ,’ is the reply he gets in return.

 

December 31st, 2014

They’re at some stupid party at the yoga studio that Lance has used as an excuse to invite anybody and everybody that he knows. The whole place is crowded, and somebody (probably, Skye) had set up a projector to play the delayed showing of the New York City New Year’s celebrations, though the loud music pumping through the studio drowns out any of the reporting going on over there. There’s a table or two where people are playing beer pong and this is going to be a mess for somebody to clean up in the morning - but none of that is important to Mack.

The only thing he can really focus on is Fitz.

Fitz, who told him that New Year’s would be when he made a decision whether they could do this _thing_ for real or not.

Fitz, who has somehow managed to turn Mack’s life completely around in the four months since Mack crossed the street and assured Fitz that his little coffee shop wouldn’t last a week.

Fitz, who turns over his shoulder to smile at Mack like he’s the greatest thing in the world, before crossing over to him, slipping their fingers together and saying, “let’s go up on the roof,” low enough so that nobody else can hear.

“We need a key for that,” Mack points out.

And Fitz just reaches into his pocket producing Lance’s key ring.

“When you’d become a master pickpocket?”

“It’s one of my many talents,” Fitz just teases, heading through the crowd to the backdoor with Mack following him.

The roof doesn’t give them too much of a video, after all the studio’s a single story, but it’s nice and peaceful, and when Fitz sits on the edge Mack joins him, their legs hanging down below, the night sky stretched out above and around them.

It’s peaceful and wonderful, and then Fitz starts talking, little things like gossip about their friends, or the fact that he had to call his parents around dinner time because of the time zones, a bunch of pointless things that don’t matter much and wouldn’t matter to Mack, except it’s Fitz that’s saying them, and somehow that makes every word of small talk the most important thing he has ever heard.

“Did you know, it’s nearly midnight,” Fitz asks, when their conversation has lulled again.

As though somehow Mack could have missed the sound of the other people counting down in the background.

As though Mack hadn’t spent much of the night checking his watch and waiting for the moment that Fitz pulled him aside.

As though the last few minutes of small talk leading up to this hadn’t left him more nerve wracked than he had ever felt in his life.

“Oh yeah,” he replies in a voice that isn’t casual at all.

In the background he hears the crowd of their friends and acquaintances continuing their count, now down into the low twenties. Somewhere there’s the sound of a TV playing the ball drop that happened hours before, but none of that matters, not when Fitz is looking at him under the night lights like this.

“Yeah, I- I wanted to talk, if you were ready?”

“I’m ready,” Mack says, “just let me down easy, Turbo.”

“What if I don’t intend to let you down?

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, some notes/questions for you, dear readers, could you help me with tagging this fic? I know some of the things coming up might have the potential to be triggering for people, since they will eventually have to have a discussion about what happened to Fitz. So I tried out some new tags up there, but I really wish there was one nice clean tag for "dealing with the aftermath of brain damage" without saying exactly that- if you have any advice please feel free to leave them in the tags?
> 
> I had other notes, but I'm forgetting them at the moment.
> 
> Oh- my beta is going to be gone the rest of December, so I need to either find a new one for the next chapter or I won't be able to update till mid-Jan, so keep an eye out for that. (Or I post un-beta'd...)
> 
> Remember if you ever have comments or questions, feel free to go bug me on tumblr. I'm plinys over there as well~ 
> 
> And a bonus goodie, if anybody was like "woah what do these stairs look like that Fitz was talking about," have a picture~ [xxx](http://41.media.tumblr.com/9d675069c45975d129bfdd8a13ec9f36/tumblr_ng6pukvfIV1qkl981o1_500.jpg)


	5. January

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is fluffy and like boarderline smutty, warning you all now, or whatever.
> 
> I'll put real notes here when I'm not supposed to be studying for my Greek Trag final.

January 1st, 2015

“What if you don’t,” Mack repeats, the words stuck in his throat.

Even with the crowd cheering below and welcoming in the New Year, there’s a silence between them, a silence stretching on and on, in which Mack is pretty sure that his heart has stopped.

But it starts up again, slowly but surely as Fitz speaks.

“Yeah- because -because I don’t want to let you down - or go - or anything that means you not being here - right here, beside me,” Fitz continues, nervously looking over at Mack for some reaction, “right now and for as long as you still feel the same?”

“I plan on feeling the same way for a long time,” Mack confesses, “just warning you now.”

“It’s a good thing I’m in for the long haul then,” he just replies, smiling.

“Shit, Turbo, you can’t just spring things like that on me, while there’s a chance I could fall.”

Fitz laughs at that, leaning into Mack’s side, “figured it’d be romantic or something, not you know, life threatening.”

“It’s kind of both,” Mack agrees, “though we really should move away from the edge before I kiss you senselessly.”

“Oh,” Fitz says, feigning innocence as he goes on, “were you planning on doing that?”

“I might have been,” he teases in return.

“Then we should most definitely do that.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice.”

 

January 2nd, 2015

Bobbi calls him up demanding that he gets their first lunch of the New Year together.

He tries not to think that there’s anything symbolic about the fact that she’s found the _one_ English Pub in all of Santa Barbara, and is currently frowning at her plate of fish and chips like they’ve personally offended her, even though she hasn’t actually taken a bite yet.

That is until she finally tells him the reason that he was there, “so guess who I kissed on New Year’s?”

“Please let the answer be a student of yours or the homeless pirate.”

“I wish,” she says, finally picking up a piece of her lunch and taking a bite out of it, probably just so she’s not obligated to talk.

He doesn’t say anything either, just keeps staring at her until she finally cracks.

“Please don’t make me say it.”

“Bobbi-”

“I know, I know,” she says, “I’ve fucked up, again, but it was just one time, a drunk New Year’s goodbye kiss and-”

“You slept together,” he guesses.

She pulls a face, “are you psychic or-”

“Please just say it wasn’t on the Yoga Mats-”

“It’s not like we haven’t before.”

Mack groans, “that’s disgusting, I’ve sat on those mats.”

“It was at his apartment,” she admits, “which is worse, because I woke up the next morning and let him make me pancakes while we watched the parade.”

“So what now?”

“We’re still getting the divorce,” Bobbi says, “I’ve paid way too much to these lawyers to turn back now.”

“Right,” he drawls the word out, but let’s the topic drop and tries to eat his lunch in peace.

That peace doesn’t last very long.

“I forgot to ask, how did things go with you and your barista boy-”

“Boyfriend,” Mack corrects.

“That is so grade school,” Bobbi tells him, “also adorable, but grade school.”

He laughs at that, “thanks, I think?”

“More important question, what are you doing here, shouldn’t you be making out with your _boyfriend_ or something?”

“You’re the one that called me,” he says pointing his fork at her accusingly.

“Yeah, well, I needed some big brothering, and good advice.”

“You manage to get any of that?”

She shrugs, “not yet.”

 

January 5th, 2015

There’s something about the way Skye says, “your boyfriend’s in the back,” that makes his whole day better.

It’s silly and a bit irrational, but then Fitz is there, smiling at him like everything is wonderful, before pressing up on his tiptoes to pull him into a kiss in front of the whole coffee shop, and the place may be nearly empty, but _this_ means something special.

At least, to him it does.

 

January 7th, 2015

“You’re like a teenage girl, it’s disgusting, I’m trying to eat,” Lance informs them both over lunch, still clearly offended that Mack has invited somebody else to their weekly lunch parties.

He didn’t complain nearly this much when Bobbi was the one showing up, and she’s the one he’s getting a divorce from, not the friendly provider of his caffeine.

Mack would be so offended, if he weren’t completely smitten with the way Fitz leans into him, lancing his right hand with Mack’s left one, and still managing to eat with chopsticks in his other hand.

He’s impressed and most certainly in love, and it’s the cause of this weird warm feeling that flows through him.

A feeling that only grows when Fitz glances up from his noodles to roll his eyes and say, “oh sod off,” leaving a flabbergasted Lance Hunter in his wake.

 

January 13th 2015

“I think we should sleep together,” Fitz says over lunch, like it’s the most casual thing in the world, continuing to each his pizza like he didn’t just drop that bombshell.

Finally Mack manages to get, “excuse me,” out of his lips.

Which of course gives Fitz all the wrong ideas, because suddenly he is looking up at Mack with this worried and perplexed expression, “Was I too forward? I don’t have a filter now with all my- my problems, and I’ve been told that I have a tendency to- to, ah- what was it?”

“Move quickly?”

“No it’s,” he pauses, and shakes his head, “moving quickly works- am I? Moving quickly? Too quickly?”

“No, not at all,” Mack assures him, because the last thing he wants is for Fitz to rescind his offer.

After all, this was what Mack had wanted since he first saw the other guy, getting out of a moving van in jeans that were just the right side of too tight on him. He wasn’t about to lose out on this.

“I just- Turbo! Man, we’re eating,” Mack points out, “normally people don’t bring up their sex lives over pizza.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re putting food in your mouth-”

“Food’s not the only thing I intend to put in my mouth,” Fitz cuts him off with the most innuendo that he’s heard from the other man ever, and Mack’s about to lose it in a pizza place, this isn’t fair at all.

“You’re going to kill me here.”

Fitz just shrugs and takes another bite of his lunch before asking, “do you not want to sleep with me?”

“Of course I want to,” Mack says, maybe a bit too quickly, but well he wasn’t entirely prepared for this discussion.

He nods his head at that, “what are you doing Friday night?”

“Uh, nothing?”

“The correct answer is me, but I’ll accept that,” Fitz says, and after a moment of Mack staring at him practically dumbfounded, he narrows his eyes and says, “stop staring and- and eat your lunch, there will be plenty of time for that later.”

 

January 16th, 2015

They’re at Mack’s place, following a dinner that he insisted upon, even though Fitz had tried to inform Mack that he was fine and had eaten earlier.

It was the principal of the matter.

His mother most certainly hadn’t raised him to be the type of guy that didn’t know how to treat a partner right.

Of course, she didn’t really intend to raise him to be the type of guy that spent half his dinner imagining what it would be like later when Fitz’s lips were wrapped around something other than a straw.

To be fair, he had been sucking on it very seductively, with a purpose that the other man couldn’t even try to deny.

They make it about ten steps into the door, Mack’s barely even got it shut, before Fitz is pressed up against him, moving onto his toes to kiss Mack, which ends up being just the right mix of adorable and incredibly hot.

“You know,” Mack says, between kisses, “I have a bed in the other room.”

Fitz pulls back for a second, scrunches up his face like he’s honestly considering it, before saying, “no, I’m good here,” and bringing his fingers up to undo the button of Mack’s shirt.

He notices that they shake a bit as he tries to unbutton them, so Mack can’t help but ask, “you’ve done the before.”

Fitz makes a face, “if you don’t really want the answer to that then-”

“Right, not with who or when, but you know what you’re doing.”

“Yes, I do,” Fitz says, “I’m twenty-six. Not some innocent virgin that you need to worry about defiling.”

“I wasn’t say that you were-”

“Doe eyed? Innocent? _Twinky?_ ”

Mack groans, “who told you?”

“Skye walked in on you and Lance _months_ ago,” Fitz says, “not that I needed her to mention anything, I have a mirror and a collection of subpar gay porn on my laptop.”

“That’s an interesting thought,” Mack says, trying not to lose himself in imaging Fitz alone in his apartment pleasuring himself, though it’s a bit hard.

“Oh yeah,” Fitz asks, finally having finished with Mack’s buttons he pulls back for a moment, before shucking his own shirt off in one fluid practiced motion.

It’s the first time that Fitz takes off his shirt in front of him. Mack figures he should have been spending the moment checking out the other guy, but instead finds himself transfixed on a chain around Fitz’s neck.

He’d seen it before, hints of the chain from the neckline of different shirts and sweaters, but it wasn’t until he took his shirt off that Mack was about to see what it was.

“You have tags?”

Fitz makes a vague noise to answer that, before his hands move to work at Mack’s fly.

“Why do you-”

“We can have that discussion,” Fitz offers, making a noise of success when he gets Mack’s pants unzipped and starts to tug them down, “or I can blow you- followed by you showing me to that bed of yours- you choose?”

“Are you always this demanding in bed,” Mack just asks, because it’s a new side of Fitz, an interesting side and one that Mack definitely likes, but it’s _new._

“That wasn’t an answer,” Fitz points out, but then he’s dropping to his knees and Mack couldn’t have even dreamed of being able to put his comments into words properly.

The only answer he could seem to manage was, “yes.”

 

January 17th, 2015

The clock says just after midnight, but at this point Mack’s so blissed out that he could care less about the time, or about whatever he might have to do when the sun rises.

The only thing he cares about is Fitz curled up against his side, looking as content as could be, who says, “we should do that again sometimes,” all casual and innocent.

“Yeah, give me a few hours, and we can go again.”

Fitz lets out a little laugh, “I’m holding you to that.”

When Fitz shuffles a bit, like he’s planning to move, Mack tightens his hold ever so slightly on the other man and says, “don’t you dare have Siri make an event of it-”

“But Mack!”

“Go to sleep, Turbo, I swear, why do I put up with you?”

 

January 19th, 2015

“Why is your phone going off,” Mack groans, because they were about two minutes from taking this make out to the next level, and now the mood is broken by Fitz’s phone singing that overly catching Taylor Swift song.

He really needs to steal that phone and change the ringtone to something that is less of a mood kill.

That or destroy it, because Fitz is climbing off of him and making a beeline towards his phone.

At this point he’s pretty sure that he ranks lower than the phone on Fitz’s list of lovers, and that’s more than slightly distressing.

Especially as he watches Fitz’s face light up at the alert on his phone, before turning to Mack with a look that is very excited but does not say ‘ _I’m going to ride you like a cowboy.’_

It almost pains him to ask, “what,” but somehow he manages it.

“There’s a meteor shower tonight- I was going to go watch it- but then you came over looking like that and I couldn’t say no- but Mack, _meteor shower_!”

Scratch that, he’s third on Fitz’s list of lovers.

First is the phone.

Second are the stars.

Then there’s Mack, ranked third.

“You’ve got a weird space boner, man.”

“I’m an astrophysicist! And come on, it’s romantic or something- I’ll point out the planets for you- and the satellites, please,” he says, and really it’s not like Mack could say no.

“I can’t believe you’re forgoing sex to look at the stars.”

“You don’t mind all _that_ much.”

“Tell that to my dick,” Mack mumbles, though he’s not sure Fitz hears him, because the other man is currently fumbling with his pants.

“Come on, Mack, the stars wait for no man,” Fitz says, before adding, “and I promise I’ll make it up to you tomorrow, but right now-”

“Okay, fine, yeah, toss me my pants.”

 

January 20th, 2015

“Everybody knows what we’re up here doing.”

Fitz rolls his eyes, “they’ve been assuming that we’ve been doing it for months, might as well finally live up to their expectations.”

“That’s not too _mainstream_ for you?”

“Shut up and take off your pants.”

 

January 22nd, 2015

He should have known by now that answering the phone during the early hours of the morning was always a bad idea, but here he was foolishly rolling over to grab the phone and press it to his ear without checking the caller ID.

Mack hopes that his vague mumbling noise somehow conveys the fact that he’s exhausted and not in the mood for this.

It doesn’t, if the cheery (and yet somehow gloomy) way the person on the other end says, “guess who's officially single?”

“Not me,” Mack mumbles into the phone, and gets an annoyed noise in response.

“Ah ha ha, fuck you and your happily ever after. The answer was me, to be clear.”

He knew that, the day had been set for a while, though he had a feeling that this would have been something that happened later in the day, rather than at four in the morning, but apparently all of his friends were unconventional messes.

“Do you want an award or something?”

“You’re supposed to console me, and let me whine for a few hours.”

“No thanks, man.”

“I’m thinking of buying a cat and moving to Alaska.”

“Yeah- have fun with that.”

Still apparently not the reaction the other guy was expecting, because Lance groans into the phone and says, “thanks for nothing, mate.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Oh- that reminds me-”

“You mean, here’s the reason you actually called?”

“-could you round up the gang for celebratory drinks tomorrow, not the tomorrow that’s later today, but _actual_ tomorrow.”

“Was there any reason this conversation is happening at four in the morning?”

“No, not really-”

“I’m hanging up then.”

 

January 23rd, 2015

“I call for a toast,” Lance says, holding his bottle of beer out in front of him like it was a wine glass, “to my demon ex-wife, who is officially not my problem anymore!”

“Aw thanks,” the woman in question says, clinking her own bottles with his, “and to my lawyers, who made certain that I won all of you lot in the divorce.”

There’s a good laugh around the group at that, an indignant protest, and more bottles clinking around the group. It’s the most peaceful post-divorce party that Mack’s even been to, though seeing as this is the first of his friends to do the whole divorce thing, that isn’t saying much.

Still, it’s nice to have everybody together even if it is for such an absurd occasion.

“So, now that I’m technically single, any chance you’d let me buy you a drink?”

Skye paused as though she’s honestly considering it before saying, “not a chance, wonderboy.”

“I’m older than you!”

“ _Wonderboy_.”

 

January 24th, 2015

“Promise me we won’t become them,” Fitz says, as he pulls his shirt off over her shoulders.

In Mack’s defense, asking, “who,” was about as far as his thought process could get while Fitz was straddling him.

The other man snorts, as usual Fitz has a superhuman ability to have conversations while in bed, and expects everyone else to be as advanced as him, “Lance and Bobbi.”

Oh, yes that made sense.

Though really their divorce was the last thing Mack wanted to talk about right now, they had just left that shitshow of a party, surely he should have been allowed a few hours of peace.

But Fitz wasn’t dropping the topic, he was just staring at Mack with furrowed eyebrows and more unspoken questions clearly on his lips.

Clearly this conversation was unavoidable.

“We’re not going to become them,” Mack says.

“Promise?”

“Yeah, I promise we won’t get married straight out of college, while you’re on your study abroad year and I’ve already been accepted to graduate school four hours away. We won’t live a long distance engagement for four years until the spark has faded and I finally get a job at our alma mater, where we try and make our marriage work, even though you’re incredibly insecure and working a job that has you surrounded by co-eds all the time, leaving me with a bitter sense of insecurity, which leads to fights over what I am or am not doing during all those late lectures and conferences. Our poorly decided upon marriage won’t quickly begin to dissolve into chaos and a divorce where we fight over who gets to keep every miniscule object we’ve collected over the years, including but not limited to: the coffee pot, that ugly painting that we bought from those drunk art students, and our mutual friends. While somehow managing to still fuck that up and sleep with each other two weeks before our divorce is finally set in stone, once again igniting the feelings we’ve been trying to squash down.”

Fitz is silent for a moment when he finishes his rant, probably thinking over how to even respond to that, but finally he does saying, “I take it you’ve been the sounding board for years of bad decisions.”

“You have no idea.”

“I’m starting to feel like I might,” Fitz laughs a little before, “Also wait- why am I Lance?”

“Because I’m Bobbi.”

“No, no, no,” Fitz shakes his head, “I’m Bobbi, she’s cool and mature-”

“Which is why _I’m_ her,” Mack insists, “and you barely know her-”

“She’s a scientist, like me,” Fitz insists, “I’m Bobbi.”

Mack just groans, “can we not have this discussion right now, or ever again.”

“If you admit that out of the two of us, I’m Bobbi, then I’ll never bring it up again.”

“Promise?”

Fitz presses a kiss against his lips that’s hot and heavy and a reminiscence of what they really should be doing instead of talking about this, though he pulls back far too soon with a little smirk on his lips and says, “promise.”

 

January 29th, 2015

“I don’t want to get out of bed,” Fitz grumbles, curling up against his side and Mack can’t help but agree with that.

If he had things his way they would stay in this bed forever.

Of course, reality and what he wanted often conflicted in his life.

“Mhmm, sorry, Turbo,” Mack says, pressing a kiss into the other guy’s curls, “I think we don’t really have a choice. Any minute now one of your employees is going to show up downstairs and demand your attention.”

“I’ll call in sick.”

“And what about me?”

“You have Trip,” he insists.

“No no no, we have to go to work and be real adults,” Mack pokes at Fitz until he reluctantly gives in, groaning and sitting up in the bed.

His glare might have been more powerful were it not for his hair which was squashed flat to his head on one side.

“Fine, you win, party pooper,” Fitz says getting up, but taking the comforter off the bed with him to wrap about his body in an over-dramatic fashion.

“I’m not a-“

“Hey Siri,” Fitz cuts him off, calling out for his phone, which responds with a chirp a moment later.

“How may I assist you?”

“What’s the weather like outside?”

Mack groans, slumping back against the pillow and watching as his adorable hipster boyfriend walks about the room getting ready to start his day, all while asking his cellphone to read off for him a detailed weather report.

“You’re such nerd,” Mack tells Fitz.

Who just gives him the finger in reply, while in the background his phone chirps out, “I do not understand that command.”

“You know,” Mack says, watching as Fitz pulls a sweater up over his shoulders.

“If you’re going to insult my phone then-”

“No, not that,” he replies, “I was just thinking about you, and this.”

“This,” Fitz repeats.

“Yeah, I could get used to this,” he admits, “waking up beside you, it’s not half bad.”

“Oh well - that’s good,” Fitz agrees, after a moment crossing over to where Mack is still laying on his bed and leaning down to kiss him, “because I plan on doing this again sometime.”

“That so, Turbo?”

“Most definitely,” he smirks, before asking, “what are you doing Friday?”

Mack can’t help, but be a little shit and reply, “you?”

“Now that’s the right answer,” Fitz  just grins and kisses Mack once more, murmuring against his lips, “if you let us skip work, you could do that now.”

“I should have known you were trouble.”

“You really should have.”

 


	6. February

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big shoutout of thanks to [Rachelle](http://nupogodi.co.vu/) for beta-ing this chapter for me, she's the bomb!
> 
> Also posting this whole stealing my neighbors wifi, so hopefully this doesn't cut out before I get the chapter up!

February 2nd, 2015

“I thought the Christmas decorations were bad,” Mack says taking a look around the coffee shop, which had been turned from it’s usual drab interior into an explosion of pinks and reds, “but this takes it to a whole new level.”

“The Christmas stuff was bad,” the one barista behind the counter mumbles, but Fitz- who has stepped out of the backroom with a cardigan slung over his shoulders, ready to drag Mack away to lunch- has a look that mirrors his employee's.

“Callie asked if she could decorate things for the holidays,” Fitz informs him. “Remind me never to let her do that again.”

Mack laughs at that. “Really, you’re trusting me to remind you? I would have figured you’d have saved the reminder in your phone by now.”

“Oh believe me, I _did._ ”

 

February 6th, 2015

“It’s called essence of love and we’re all getting drunk off of it.”

“Do you ever make plans that don’t involve alcohol?”

“No, he doesn’t,” Mack cuts in before the other guy can say anything.

“We can make a drinking game out of it, project something over the yoga mats, some trash movie about people being in love and having happy healthy relationships.”

This time it’s Fitz that laughs. “Sorry not all of us are dysfunctional messes.”

“Mack! Your boyfriend is being mean to me!”

“He does that sometimes,” Mack just replies, looping an arm over Fitz’s shoulder to tug the smaller man towards him, “I find it endearing.”

“You would.”

 

February 10th, 2015

Fitz finds his way into the garage before Mack can even make it over to the coffee shop, and the first thing he says is, “please tell me you don’t have something stupidly romantic planned for Valentine’s Day.”

Mack freezes, because in all honesty he had completely forgotten the holiday was coming up.

Sure, he’d had to listen to Lance going on and on about his plans to win a date from Skye, but he hadn’t really put the two together until now.

His face must show something because Fitz says, “because I don’t want to do anything fancy- I mean, if you’ve already made reservations somewhere we could- but I’d really rather not.”

“I hadn’t,” Mack assures him a moment later, “nothing special.”

“Oh good,” he says, sounding honestly relieved.

“I just want to spent time with you, if that’s alright? We don’t have to go out anywhere, unless you want to hit up the beach or something-”

“It’ll probably be crowded,” Fitz points out.

“Right, so that’s out,” Mack agrees, “but yeah, whatever you want is fine by me.”

“Thank you.”

“Anytime, Turbo, anytime.”

 

February 13th, 2015

His latte has a heart drawn in the foam, and Mack can’t help himself from smiling down into it, unwilling to start drinking his drink for the fear of ruining it. If he had a camera he would probably snap a picture of it, to save the memory of this moment forever.

He doesn’t though.

So, instead he just stares down into the foam and half-listens to his friends’ conversations.

“Oh no, I got Callie to cover for me,” Skye says, leaning across the counter and grinning at them, “since I have a date tomorrow.”

Fitz makes a disgruntled face at that before asking, “with who?”

At that, Skye points across the coffee shop where Lance had been trying to act low key and examine the latest chalkboard designs on the walls.

“Really,” Mack asks.

Lance’s little “ouch,” is ignored by the rest of the group when Skye nods her head.

“He kept bugging me to give him a chance, and I said the only way I would was if he would sit through _50 Shades of Grey_ with me, and-”

“And I’m never one to back down from a challenge,” Lance finishes for her, “just wait, when we’re done tomorrow, you’ll be begging me to give you the _privilege_ of dating me.”

“Oh please,” she snorts, before turning towards Mack and Fitz, “what about you two? Anything exciting? A romantic getaway, a fancy dinner, a terrible publicly sanctioned porno without any views of actual dick?”

“Our night will probably involve actual dick,” Mack teases, while Fitz leans into his side with a laugh.

“It better!”

 

February 14th, 2015

Later, he’d like to be able to tell people that his romantic plans for Valentine’s Day involved any of the silly things that Skye had suggested the day before, but really, it had been nothing fancy.

In fact, they spent most of it in bed.

Fitz who had woken him up a bit over eagerly, and then joked that they shouldn’t even leave the blankets when they found themselves worn out all over again less than an hour after rising.

Somehow calling in sick for the day had just seemed like the right idea.

Really the only time they left the bed was when Fitz made his phone order them a heart shaped pizza, and made Mack eat it in the living room with him while some terrible romantic comedy (but one slightly less porn-y than what their friends were watching) played in the living room.

Not that Mack remembered most of it, since once Fitz finished eating his pizza, he had decided to put his mouth to better use, but it was the thought that counted.

And sure, while later he’d embellish the story of their Valentine’s Day to all that asked, him and Fitz coming up with more elaborate and obviously fake stories each time they were asked, he had to admit that this was the best Valentine’s Day that he’d had in what felt like forever.

 

February 17th, 2015

“It’s vintage,” Mack says, hands smoothing over the car that one of his clients had brought in.

He’d been making comments about wanting to work on one of these forever, and now it was in his hands.

Mack would almost be willing to label this as one of the best things that had ever happened to him, if it wasn’t for Fitz standing on the other side of the car looking at him with a slightly amused look.

For an engineer, the other guy just didn’t have the same respect for cars that Mack had always hoped his significant other would have.

Though there was something about the way he says “I want you to fuck me in it,” with no hint of innocence or grace, that really got to Mack.

He feels it necessary to point out once more that the car is, “very vintage and very much not mine.”

But that only causes a smirk to find its way onto Fitz’s lips, “you know you’re considering it.”

“Of course, I’m considering it, who wouldn’t be?”

 

February 21st, 2015

The honeymoon phase, as their friends had teasingly dubbed it, had been going great.

Mack could have been content to spend the rest of his life like that, but he had seen enough cheesy movies and watched enough of his friends go through relationships (as well as having a few of his own) to know that this was coming.

It was just that he had imagined it a bit different.

Some petty argument that they might have that would blow up and cause them to spend a few days where they didn’t want to see each other, before Mack swept into the coffee shop with an overly bright bouquet of flowers from the campus florist and Fitz forgave him.

Not _this._

“You okay, Turbo,” he asks, because the first time he had said this, he hadn’t received a reaction from the other man.

This time Fitz manages to let out some sort of mumble, a garbage noise that made no sense, as his hands clutched at his head in a sign that was obviously some sort of pain.

Mack had thought at first he hit himself on the headboard, but Fitz’s reaction didn’t fit with that.

He pushes himself out of the bed, in order to cross over to his bathroom and fumble for a bottle of aspirin, but before he can even get back over to Fitz, the other man has managed to sit up a bit and say, “it won’t help.”

“Okay,” Mack sets the bottle back down, “is there anything I can-”

“No,” he cuts in, quickly, bringing another hand up to rub at his temples, “I need to- need my- my call-”

“Your phone?”

“Yes.”

His eyes sweep across the room without any success, vaguely he recalls that the phone was tossed somewhere last night after Fitz made some smart ass joke about asking Siri to time how long it took for Mack to get it up again, and he had tossed the phone somewhere far away in retribution.

It had seemed like a great idea at the time, but now as he searched and Fitz laid there clearly in distress, he regrets it.

When nothing else seems to work he tries one last time, the stupid thing he usually made fun of Fitz for, “hey Siri.”

He had fully expected to just look like an idiot, but when the phone screen lights up the corner of the room he lets out a sigh of relief and crosses over to grab it, before returning it to its owner.

Mack’s pretty sure the look Fitz shoots him is one of thanks, but its hard to tell.

“Text Skye,” Fitz commands the phone.

Which helpfully chirps back, “what would you like me to tell Skye?”

He takes a deep breath, like he’s steadying himself before saying, “I need you to work today- not feeling well - bad day, bad head.”

The phone reads back at the vague message, before Fitz says, “yeah, send,” and pushes the device away from him.

They sit there in silence a few moments longer before Mack asks, “is there anything I can do to make you feel better?”

Fitz looks up at him for a moment, as if really thinking about it before saying, “no, probably not.”

“Right, okay,” he replies a beat later, only slightly wounded by Fitz’s dismissive tone.

“I need to get home.”

“Sure, let me grab my keys and I can-”

“No,” he cuts him off again, far too quickly, and looking paler than before, if that was even possible, “no, nevermind. Just leave me alone, please.”

Mack feels a bit like he should point out that this is _his_ apartment, and thus he shouldn’t be the one being sent away, but clearly something is up with Fitz and if he didn’t want to talk about it then fine.

“Uh, I guess, I’ll be out in the living room if you need me.”

He can’t be certain if he heard Fitz right. After all, he was already closing the door behind him when he thought he heard the other man say, “I won’t.”

Mack’s not sure how much time passes, but it’s early in the morning and that’s his excuse for falling asleep on the couch.

When he wakes up around noon though, Fitz is gone, and all that’s left in his place is a sticky note stuck to Mack’s bedroom door that reads ‘ _sorry’._

 

February 22nd, 2015

He doesn’t hear anything from Fitz the next day, even though he calls the other man twice, and leave him a variety of concerned text messages.

There’s even a moment there where he considers bugging Lance to see if he has Skye’s number and asking her for news on Fitz, before realizing how grade school the whole thing felt and backing off a bit.

Though backing off didn’t mean that he isn’t still staring at his stupid flip phone as if the piece of plastic had personally offended him by not delivering news of Fitz’s well being.

 

February 23rd, 2015

His minor distress and need for some sort of an explanation only grows when he makes it to the coffee shop Monday morning to find that Fitz is nowhere to be found.

Donnie, whose working behind the counter, makes some comment about how Skye said he wasn’t feeling well, but had no further information than that.

 

February 26th, 2015

After days of obsessively checking into the coffee shop, he finally manages to run into Skye, who makes a little distressed face when he comes into the shop.

“It’s not my place to say anything,” is the only answer that she will give, before pressing a cup of coffee (on the house) into his hand.

“Just tell me he’s not dead in a ditch somewhere.”

“He’s not,” Skye assures him, “at least, not yet.”

 

February 28th, 2015

He answers the phone, ready for whatever explanation Fitz has, because the last time this had happened - Fitz disappearing and not talking to him, they hadn’t been dating, so really it hadn’t been any of Mack’s business, but now- well, he felt like it was sort of his job to be there for the other man, to help him.

He cares for Fitz a lot, and he just wishes there was an easy way to show that, without Fitz closing up these walls on him.

“Hey, what’s-”

“I was in a car accident,” Fitz says, cutting him off, his voice steady and sharp and so clear that for a second Mack’s heart stops in his chest.

“Are you at Cottage Hospital or-”

“No, not,” the voice on the other end of the line sounds slightly exasperated, but eventually he continues, “it happened months ago, last summer, right before I came here.”

“Oh, I see.”

“No, you don’t.”

Mack isn’t sure how to respond to that, so he doesn’t say anything for a moment, and waits until Fitz begins again.

“I was in a car accident,” Fitz’s repeats the words once more, putting stress on the word accident, “it wasn’t- wasn’t my fault. The person who had been driving, he wasn’t in his right mind,” there’s a ragged noise on the other line, “one second we were on the road and everything was fine and the next-” this time the noise is clearer, and the sound of it nearly breaks Mack in two, “I’m okay- not okay, but I’m alive and,” he doesn’t finish that sentence, but there’s more sniffling and Mack can sort of get the picture, “I have- hypo- hyper-” he can’t get the word right if the frustrated noise is anything to go by, and Mack can’t fill in the gaps, not for this, “my brain, it was damaged - I’m damaged, I told you that before- that you wouldn’t want me, because I’m damaged, so if you want to end things- then please just do it quickly.”

“Fitz,” Mack says, not wanting to cut him off, but at the same time knowing that there was a chance their conversation could turn self-deprecating on Fitz’s end and he didn’t want that.

He doesn’t get a response at first, but after a moment of more ragged breathing, he hears Fitz answer, “yes?”

The words at the edge of his lips are _‘I love you,’_ but maybe it’s too soon for that, and he’s worried that he’ll scare Fitz away, so instead he says, “you know I care about you.”

When Fitz doesn’t reply, Mack continues, “I care about you a lot, more than I’ve cared about somebody else in a long time. You’re my,” the word _boyfriend_ doesn’t seem right even though that’s technically what he is, “you’re my Turbo, you’re the reason I keep going forward. I’ll admit that I was hurt a bit that you wouldn’t let me help you, that you wouldn’t tell me what was going on. I thought,” well he’d thought a great many things, none of which were particularly suited for this conversation.

“I’m sorry,” Fitz beats him to the punch, “I’m sorry I’m so messed up and you have to deal with me.”

“I like dealing with you.”

There’s a little snort, and it pains Mack to hear it, but it’s better than what he had heard before.

“I really do, Fitz, more than anything else in the world.”

“Yeah?”

“If you let me, I’d spend every day for the rest of forever dealing with you.”

He thinks that might have been too much, but Mack’s not about to take it back, because he really does mean it.

Still, it feels like an eternity before Fitz responds, “you could start, if you wanted, by bringing a bread bowl full of chicken noodle up to my apartment.”

“Yeah, okay,” Mack says, feeling relieved for this first time since he had woken up to see Fitz in pain on the other side of the bed, “consider it done.”

“I’ll consider it done when it gets here.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY NOTES WILL COME LATER BUT, IF YOU'RE READING THE COMMENTS HERE, ITS TIME FOR A BONUS ROUND QUESTION. shoot me a message somewhere and let me know if you know what a bread bowl is, because apparently certain people didn't believe that they existed, wth, right??


	7. March

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again thanks to Rachelle for stepping in to beta this! (Sorry for all my commas!)

March 1st, 2015

They’re not talking about all the things properly, not all at once, or anything like that, but slowly it’s coming out, over the long sleepless nights and a morning where they watch the sun filter in through the curtains of Fitz’s far too small apartment.

Fitz makes him bagels in the morning, which they eat in bed, getting crumbs into the creases of sheets that probably won’t be washed for another month. Another time Mack might have complained about that, but a week without Fitz had made him put aside any possible complains about his quirks. Instead, all Mack could think about was how lucky he was to have Fitz with him now.

As they take their day slowly, Mack presses kisses into Fitz’s curls, the curve of his neck, and every inch of him that Mack can reach, until Fitz is begging him with a strained little breathless voice to do something. “I’m not fragile, you can do something.”

“Maybe I just want to kiss you all day.”

“You don’t,” Fitz insists, “you want to talk, and make sad faces in my direction when you think I’m not looking.”

Mack stills for a second. The sinking realization of having been caught makes him want to say “sorry.”

“No it’s - normally it annoys me- when people do the pity thing, but you’re not- not,” Fitz pauses, squeezes his eyes shut for a moment and says, “you’re teasing me and it’s annoying.”

“Do you want me to stop kissing you?”

“I want you to do _far_ morethan that.”

 

March 3rd, 2015

“We’re not students,” Fitz reminds him, as he trails along a step behind, hugging his sweater closer to his body to keep the heat trapped in.

Mack would have swung an arm around his shoulder and offered to keep him warm, but he had a goal in mind for tonight and there was no being steered from his plan.

“Doesn’t matter,” Mack just replies.

“I’m pretty sure it does,” Fitz stubbornly insists. “After ten the library closes and only students can get in.”

“I know somebody on the inside,” he replies.

“It’s dead week,” Fitz points out, “nearly everybody knows somebody on the inside, but that doesn’t mean we should go in there.”

Mack stops in his place, waiting until Fitz, who has continued walking realizes that he has stopped and turns around as well with an expectant look on his face.

“Do you trust me,” Mack asks.

“What?”

“It’s a simple question, Turbo.”

Fitz looks like he’s ready to object to that assertion, but he doesn’t say anything on that matter, instead he just shrugs his shoulders a bit and says, “yeah, I guess.”

“You guess?”

“I trust you,” Fitz says, more sure this time, “I wouldn’t have told you about- about that stuff before- if I didn’t trust you- you know that.”

Mack leans down to press a quick kiss to Fitz’s lips before righting himself, “good, now come on.”

“Mack!”

“No objections, you said you trust me, you can’t take that back now.”

Once they reach the outside of the library, staring at the glass doors that clearly aren’t opening, he pulls his phone out of his pocket, ignoring Fitz’s grumbles about the cold air and the locked doors.

The phone only has to ring once before a far too chipper voice says, “how much has he complained?”

“It’s too high to count,” Mack replies.

And Fitz, only hearing one side of their conversation, asks, “what’s too high to count,” from beside him.

Before Mack can explain, the doors to the library open, revealing his ticket inside.

Skye grins at them, before shoving her phone into her pocket, “I don’t know why you put up with his whining all the time. The sex can’t be that good. I mean, it’s _Fitz_ we’re talking about.”

“Oh, sod off!”

“Nice uniform,” Mack replies, before none too gently pushing Fitz inside the library.

Skye shakes her head at the two of them, her high ponytail bobbing along with the motion. “I’m _campus security_. It’s my job to look fancy and official so that I can scare all the freshmen,” she says sticking her tongue out at them, “I’ve got a mag light and a radio to snitch to the narcs with and-”

“Skye,” a different voice interrupts them, “you’re supposed to go count the students not chat with your friends who forgot their access cards.”

From behind the counter, another woman, dressed in the same uniform, gives them a disapproving look.

“I know, Raina, I know,” Skye says back, “now toss me the clipboard before-”

“Please do not toss her a clipboard, last time I watched Skye try to catch something we had to spend hours cleaning up flour.”

The other campus security officer, Raina apparently, arches an eyebrow at them, but thankfully doesn’t toss the clipboard and just smacks it down on the counter.

“Come on, boys,” Skye says. “Walk with me and see the wonders of campus security, otherwise known as my third job-”

“Wait, what’s your second job?”

“I’ll never tell,” she says grinning at them, and when Fitz looks like he’s going to ask again she just whacks him with the clipboard, “come on, up we go, elevator though because stairs are extremely overrated.”

“You’re only going up one floor,” Raina calls after them, but Skye just makes some weird gesture over her shoulder at her coworker, before aggressively pressing the elevator button and shooing them inside it when the doors open.

They all stand there in silence until the doors close and Skye, who had previously pressed the button for the second floor, slides her card over the reader again and punches the button for the eighth floor.

“You boys have an hour,” Skye says, giving them both a look, “I don’t care what crazy sex things you want to get up to, but in an hour you need to take this back down to the second floor before Raina does her round, got it?”

“Got it,” Mack says, giving Skye a mock salute that she just rolls her eyes to.

“Use protection,” she offers as one last farewell, before stepping off the elevator onto the second floor, and leaving them behind.

“We’re not actually having sex in the library, are we,” Fitz says when the door closes behind her.

“I seem to remember somebody getting drunk and insisting that it was on their bucket list.”

Fitz scoffs, stepping out onto the eighth floor once the elevator doors open. “You can’t count the things I say drunk as real thoughts.”

“Fine,” Mack shrugs his shoulders, and joins Fitz up near the windows, “we don’t have to, then.”

“No - that’s not, I mean - we’re already up here- and we - we - it would be a waste not to,” Fitz says quickly, “I just- we shouldn’t- but we _should_ \- and you know?”

“You know, Turbo, for once I think I’m not following you,” Mack teases.

And his words get just the right reaction, because a second later Fitz is rolling his eyes and pressing up on his tiptoes to pull Mack down to his level.

 

March 4th, 2015

“You’re ditching me for lunch,” Mack says, hoping that he sounds slightly offended. “That’s low even for you.”

“Last time we had lunch you boyfriend insulted my shirt and my yoga studio, which to be clear, is the best yoga studio in town.”

“It’s the only yoga studio in town,” Mack points out before adding, “have fun on your date, try not to fuck this one up like last time.”

“The date or the relationship?”

“Do you even want me to answer that question?”

“On second thought, nevermind.”

 

March 7th, 2015

This has happened before, Fitz’s phone going off during a very heated make out session or something more, and the smaller man rolling away from their activities in order to grab his phone.

In fact, Mack was used to it.

He had long since accepted his place in the chain of Fitz’s affections, and was perfectly happy with usually being in second (or third) place.

It’s because of that that he knows something is wrong this time.

For as the phone goes off, with a different ringtone than the usual Top 40 trash that conflicted with his hipster appearance, Fitz stills against him for a few seconds, but makes no actual move to get the phone.

“It’s okay if you wanna grab that,” Mack says, like he doesn’t mind, which he mostly doesn’t.

Fitz just shakes his head, but makes no move to resume their kissing.

Instead, he just sits there, leans his head down onto Mack’s shoulder, remaining as tense as before, until the phone finally stops ringing.

When a good minute passes with neither of them moving, Mack tries to approach the subject, “Fitz-”

“Please don’t ask.”

“Yeah, okay.”

 

March 11th, 2015

“I need you to get naked for charity.”

“You know Turbo, you need me to get naked a lot,” Mack points out, ignoring Fitz’s almost painful looking eyeroll.

“Mack, the Undie Run only comes around once a quarter and last time we were still,” he makes some non-committal noise to finish that sentence, “and now- now I need you to get naked for charity.”

 

March 13th, 2015

They’re doing a horror movie marathon with the gang at the yoga studio, in honor of it being Friday the 13th.

One second they’re all laughing about the subpar special effects, and the next second Fitz has his phone out of his pocket, staring down at the display, looking more horrified than Mack had seen him all night.

He doesn’t really mean to glance at the phone but he does, spotting a picture of an unfamiliar woman and the accompanying name _Jemma Simmons_.

“Do you need to take that,” he asks, quietly so that they don’t disturb the group around them.

Fitz shakes his head, but makes no move to return to watching the movie, and eventually when the phone stops ringing and the caller goes to voicemail, he gets up extracting himself from Mack’s side and insisting that there’s no need to pause the movie and that he’ll be right that.

The movie ends, and Skye puts on another one long before Fitz eventually returns, looking far more worn down than before and leaning against Mack for a second. “I think I’m going to skip out early.”

“Yeah, sure,” Mack says, preparing to get up.

He wasn’t really invested in the movie anyways, he hadn’t be able to really focus on anything since Fitz had disappeared before.

“You can stay if you want-”

“Nah, this movie sucks anyways.”

“You suck,” Skye replies, not looking away from the screen, but somehow managing to flip him off all the same, “you crazy kids have fun, use protection, the usual.”

“I’m older than you and your boss,” Fitz points out, but the rest of the ‘gang’ has gone back to watching the movie.

They slip out shortly after that without much fuss.

For the first stretch of their walk to the coffee shop, they talk about nothing really important - the terrible horror movies (“they really are absolutely trash”), whether he’s going to keep the garage open over spring break (“doubt I’ll get much business with the students gone”), the night sky (“I’m just saying you’ve got a boner for space”) - before the topic that Mack had been wanting to bring up since Fitz slipped out of the room makes it out.

“You could have stayed back there, you know,” Fitz says, “I don’t need you to walk me home.”

“Maybe I like walking you home,” Mack replies, before pointing out, “and you did look a bit shaken in there, figured you might need somebody to keep an eye out for creatures lurking in dark alleys.”

He had tried to keep the comment light enough, as so not to spook Fitz, but he’s not entirely successful, because Fitz stops walking all at once, abruptly enough that Mack has to actually double back to where he is.

“It was not- nothing important really- just an old friend.”

“Yeah, I peeked at your phone when it rang,” Mack says, adding on a quick “sorry.”

“It’s - It’s alright.”

“It was a Jenny something?”

“Jemma,” Fitz corrects quickly, “Jemma Simmons, she’s - she’s a biochemist.”

“Like Bobbi?”

Fitz makes a noise of agreement, “that’s actually - it’s funny because - because - she’s - my friend- and is coming here - teaching as a visiting professor- and we haven’t talked in- in a while.”

“A blast from the past then,” Mack says, assuming from the way Fitz looks that this person isn’t a good thing. Then again ,he’s getting mixed signals every time Fitz calls her his _friend_.

“Something like that,” he agrees, “I - I don’t really want to talk about it, okay?”

“Right, got it.” Mack holds up his hands appeasingly, “consider the topic dropped until you bring it up again.”

“Thanks.”

“Yeah, anytime, Turbo, anytime.”

 

March 16th, 2015

Mack stares at the glorified sink before him that Fitz insists is his shower. (It’s not, to be clear, okay maybe there’s a hose and one of those shower nozzles, but _this_ is the furthest thing from a shower.)

“You know, Turbo, this is it, this is our deal breaker,” Mack says, staring at the thing, “I can’t date a man without a decent shower.”

“Oh sod off,” Fitz tells him, slapping his arm and shimmying past Mack (a really miraculous act given their lack of space) to stand under the spray of the ‘shower.’

“I suddenly understand what Skye was complaining about.”

“Do you now?”

“This has to be the smallest shower known to man,” Mack continues, “we should contact whoever’s in charge of the World Records-”

“I fit in it just fine,” Fitz objects.

“Yeah well, sorry to inform you, but you’re the smallest human I have ever seen so-”

“I’m two inches taller than Skye!”

“What, no, that can’t be right,” Mack objects, leaning against the counter of the very cramped bathroom, his eyes not leaving Fitz’s form.

“It is,” he insists, “you’re just freakishly tall.”

“That so?”

“ _Freakishly tall._ ”

 

March 17th, 2015

“If another person pinches me, I’m going to cut off their hands.”

“It’s your fault for not wearing green,” Mack says.

“I _am_ wearing green,” Fitz insists, waving his wrist (which is adorned with a green ribbon) into the air, as though everybody in the Pub will suddenly notice that and let off of him.

“Pretty sure that doesn’t count, Turbo.”

“It does too!”

“I told you that we should have bought you one of those ‘Kiss Me I’m Irish’ shirts from Vons.”

“I’m _Scottish!_ How does nobody ever seem to remember that?”

“Didn’t stop Lance from wearing one,” Mack points out.

But that just gets him an eyeroll, and a “yes, because that is _exactly_ who I want to emulate.”

 

March 18th, 2015

He’s been in this situation before, waking up to see Fitz groaning and rubbing at his head as though it had personally offended him, so he knows that the first thing he needs to do is not panic, and the second is to ask if Fitz wants a ride home or a hot compress.

(The very same hot compress that Mack had bought after he and Fitz had had their broken up talk about his situation.)

“No, no,” Fitz insists this time though, his hand reaching away from his head to tug Mack back down into the bed, “it’s not that - I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine, Turbo.”

“I am,” he insists.

And Mack lets it drop, because really Fitz was be the only out of the two of them that could actually know that answer.

“I’m just hungover,” Fitz explains, curling up against Mack, “you could try rubbing my head-  make it feel better, but I think coffee is the best cure.”

“I thought coffee didn’t actually cure hangovers.”

Fitz just snorts against his chest, “coffee cures everything.”

 

March 20th, 2015

“Hey Siri!”

“Seriously, Turbo?”

Fitz shushes him, pressing his hand over Mack’s mouth as though that could keep him quiet before he asks, “when’s high tide?”

“High tide will be at 4:39 PM today.”

That’s clearly not the answer Fitz was hoping for, because his brows furrow a bit before he asks, “when’s low tide?”

“Low tide will be at 10:57 AM today.”

It’s with that answer that he removes his hand from Mack’s mouth and asks, “fancy a walk on the - the beach to end our spring break?”

“Pretty sure we’ve still got the weekend,” Mack points out, “and we live on the beach.”

“Mack,” Fitz whines, “please - I’ll never ask for anything else this break.”

“That’s not true in the slightest.”

“No,” he admits, “but I’m sure you can be - be- ah?”

“Ah?”

Fitz’s eyeroll is painful, but he leans down to kiss Mack, before whispering, “persuaded,” against his lips in a far too sensual manner.

“That’s not even _fair._ ”

 

March 22nd, 2015

When he comes into the coffee shop Sunday morning he can already tell that something is off, since the music which usually blasts through the shop, creating an atmosphere that isn’t exactly suited for studying, has been turned down to some dull instrumental mix.

The writing on the walls, most of which were vague profanity riddled poems or that weird computer code that Skye liked to throw up there when she was bored, has been scrubbed off and  replaced with mathematical formulas and weirdly analytical drawings of flowers.

But most alarming of all is the fact that Fitz isn’t in the backroom for once, instead he’s sitting at one of the tables having a quiet conversation with an unfamiliar woman.

When Fitz doesn’t look up at the noise of the door opening, Mack casts a look over to the barista behind the counter, it’s Skye this time, and she mouths ‘ _the fuck’_ at him before pointing back toward Fitz and his companion.

Mack doesn’t want to interrupt their conversation, but there’s a weird vibe around the shop, so he makes sure to speak loudly enough that Fitz couldn’t miss his voice when he asks Skye to make him a drink.

He normally would have expected Fitz to get up at that point and insist that he had this under control, but today was turning out to be a weird enough morning, and really Mack was just glad Fitz bothered to look his way and say, “good morning!”

“Morning, Turbo.“

“Oh, and who is this,” the woman asks, turning in his direction, so that he can see her now.

There’s something vaguely familiar about her face, but Mack can’t place his finger on why that is.

“I’m Mack, Fitz’s-”

“Friend,” Fitz jumps in, “Mack is- he is my - my friend. He works across- across the- and comes for coffee - because we’re friends - _just_ friends.”

He tries not to be too offended by it, because clearly this person is somebody important to Fitz, somebody that he isn’t out to or somebody he doesn’t feel comfortable discussing their relationship with. Fitz keeps shooting him this worried look, eyes seeming to silently beg him to play along, to let this one slide.

So he does, even though it pains him, he claps a hand on Fitz’s back in a way that says nothing more than friendship and smiles at her as he says, “that’s right, we’re friends.”

“And this is - is Jemma,” Fitz says, then giving Mack one very pointed look before looking away from him and back to his companion

“Oh,” the woman lights up, turning her full attention back to Fitz now that the dilemma has been sorted out, “well, that’s wonderful, I’m glad you have friends!”

And just like that Mack is completely forgotten again.

When Skye presses a to-go cup of coffee into his hands a few moments later he’s just thankful for the excuse to leave, but he doesn’t miss the disappointed look on her face as he turns to go.

 

March 23rd, 2015

They haven’t talked since the day before. Mack got busy at the garage and, what with everybody coming back from break, one thing led to another.

He did send Fitz a good night text, but hadn’t received one in reply, and maybe that was why he was grabbing his phone once more, rather than walking across the street and trying to find Fitz.

‘ _Want to grab lunch?’_ He types before he can think twice about it.

His phone goes off, far quicker than Mack had expected with Fitz’s message, _‘srry, i have plans...’_

 

March 25th, 2015

“I mean he stressed that we were nothing more than friends to this chick.”

“Maybe she’s homophobic?”

Sure, okay, that might explain things, but they’ve been together for nearly three months now and if that was the case he really figured Fitz would have offered him some sort of explanation, instead of this practical radio silence thing.

“I need you to tell me that I’m not being clingy and that something is up here?

“You’re definitely being clingy,” Lance says, not providing the support Mack had been hoping for in the slightest, “and trust me, I know clingy.”

“Don’t sound too proud about that.”

 

March 29th, 2015

He ends up taking Lance’s poorly given advice, and, even though it pains him, he texts Fitz (not enough to feel pushy), swings by the coffee shop in the mornings for his usual cup (though usually whoever’s working there makes his cup), but other than that he backs off and let’s Fitz enjoy his time with his friend or whatever it is that’s going on.

That is, until a week later. He’s back in the coffee shop, fully expecting to be ignored.

This time, it’s Seth who’s covering Skye’s shift, and he makes a distressed noise at the prospect of making Mack a drink.

“And when I mess it up, you’ll tell Fitz to fire me,” Seth insists, “no way am I falling for that trap. Boss Man, you’ve got to make Mack’s drink.”

That catches Fitz’s attention once more, and for a second he seems like he’s about to open his mouth up and refuse, but it’s the woman- Jemma- who sweeps in to save the day and says, “oh Fitz, go save your employee from your friend’s wrath,” as though she somehow understands the situation.

She doesn’t at all.

But it does get Fitz up, the other man squaring his shoulders before he crosses over and gets behind the counter, working the machines with a careful precision, though remaining silent as he does so, rather than his usual talkative self.

Mack’s perfectly content to let the lull in the conversation happen, but Jemma apparently is not, because she picks up a moment later, “you’re Mack, right?”

“That’s me,” he replies, looking away from Fitz and instead turning to take her in.

“And Fitz mentioned that you were a mechanic?”

“Yeah.”

“That must be a rewarding career,” she says in a voice that makes words that might have sounded insulting into a compliment, “I didn’t mean offence, I just mean, you must really enjoy it, to dedicate your life to it.”

“Yeah, I’m a cars guy.”

“Well, that’s good.”

“You’re a biochemist?”

“Yes, I am,” she replies proudly, “well, it’s one of my PhDs, I have four actually. I’m working as a guest lecturer for now, because I can never stay in one place too long. I get cabin fever, but Fitz has probably told you all about that, of course.”

“Of course,” Mack’s own voice has just a hint of bitterness, but if the women notices she says nothing about it.

“I actually just got back from this wonderful program in South Africa and,” whatever else she had to say somehow filtered into white noise in his head, and Mack was really only able to focus on two words, two words that he had heard before months ago in some shitty bar.

Just _friends_ suddenly made a lot more sense.

 

March 30th, 2015

“She was the girl, the girl he liked who went to South Africa, and I’m just the phase.”

“Fuck, mate, how drunk are you right now?”

“Well I started at noon and its a little after midnight, you do the math.”

“Give me ten minutes to put on pants and I’ll be over there.”

“Why do you have to put on pants?”

There’s a little laugh on the other end, before he says, “why do you think?”

“Shit, sorry, I’ll call Bobbi instead-”

“No you don’t. Bro Code rule number seventy-three: when one of your best mates realizes that his love life is fucked, you get your ass over there instead of delegating the duties to your she-demon ex-wife.”

“Pretty sure that’s not in the Bro Code.”

“Pretty sure you’re too drunk to bet on that.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to type notes here, but then I remembered that I just bought all of She-Hulk so sorry, I'll come back to this.


	8. April

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First off sorry for taking a century to update this, things got pretty busy and I lost inspiration to write pretty much anything once the New Year rolled in. Then when I finally managed to write this chapter, I didn't end up liking it, scrapped the whole thing, and rewrote it. I'm /far/ happier with how things turned out now, so check this out and sorry for the freakishly long delay.

April 1st, 2015

He’s hungover, and for a second, when he sees the figure sitting outside of the garage, Mack can’t help himself from questioning if this is even real.

A quick pinch to his side proves that he’s awake.

“Been a while,” Mack says, staring down at Fitz, who has made no effort to get up, his back pressed against the door to the garage, blocking Mack’s entrance.

Fitz doesn’t look too good.

There’s a grimace on his face, his usually curly hair looks flatter on one side than the other, and the jacket he’s wearing looks familiar and far too big for Fitz’s small frame.

“I think we need to talk,” Fitz eventually manages to get out.

“Yeah, we do,” Mack agrees, “did you want to do that out here or inside the shop?”

“I-” Fitz starts then stops, “yes - inside would probably be - more - more better.”

“Private,” Mack offers the correction when he can see Fitz’s displeasure at his own words.

“That.”

Still Fitz doesn’t move, and when Mack wiggles his keys a bit and makes a move to unlock the door, he finally gets the memo, darting up with a lack of grace and moving out of Mack’s way. Once the door is unlocked they both their make way inside, though even as the door shuts behind him, making this place more private, there’s no sense of ease among them.

“You wanted to talk,” Mack prompts.

Fitz nods his head jerkily.

“I - I did - I do, well - no I don’t, but we should talk and I’m here now to - to talk.”

He’s stuttering again, worse than usual and normally Mack would take that as a sign that Fitz is having one of his bad days. There’s a voice in the back of his mind that suggests asking if Fitz is alright, not emotionally because clearly he’s distressed, but rather physically.

However, he doesn’t voice his concern.  

“I know lately I’ve been - been, well-”

“Avoiding me.”

“Distant,” Fitz corrects, “I was going to say distant.”

“Same difference.”

“No, it’s - it’s complicated, and I know you - you probably are - don’t understand why I-”

“Actually, I think I’ve got it all figure out.”

Fitz looks as though he’s been struck when Mack cuts him off, but he eventually manages to speak up, “you know then that-”

“That you want to end things between us, so you can pursue your doctor friend.”

“I want to end - listen Mack, what I’m trying-”

“I couldn’t figure it out at first, thought I did something wrong,” Mack continues, talking over Fitz’s almost incoherent stuttering, “but then I remembered when we first met and we were at that bar.”

“The Wildcat’s a club,” Fitz corrects, but it’s a weak response.

“Yeah, we were at the club, and you mentioned this girl you liked who went off to South Africa, and I get it now. She’s the girl.”

“No - I mean, yes - Jemma is the one who - but you don’t get to just-”

“I’m not going to stand in the way of whatever you two have going on,” Mack continues, “I decided that a little while ago,” two days ago, actually, while he was getting drunk with Lance.

“What are you - we’re not - no - Mack - stop, just stop and listen to me-”

“We can still be friends,” Mack offers, because they were friends before all of this (sort of) and he’d never actually ended on bad terms with an ex before.

He sticks out his hand for Fitz to shake it, the end all that he had decided upon the second he realized Fitz really was sitting outside his garage.

“Stop - stop doing that,” Fitz says, ignoring Mack’s outstretched hand, his own coming up to shove at Mack.

“Stop doing what?”

“Finishing my sentences! Everybody always - but you - you used to not - not - and now you’re getting the wrong - you used to wait and let me figure - figure it-”

“Maybe I’m tired of waiting around for you to _figure_ things out.”

From the look on Fitz’s face, he can tell that his connotation wasn’t missed. Mack watches as Fitz’s expression morphs, from shocked to twisted to upset and then to angry.

“Tell me this is a joke,” Fitz says tersely. “Say April Fools and that everything will be back to normal.”

“Life’s not that easy, Turbo.”

“No, you’re right. Fine. Okay, good, then - good,” Fitz manages to get out from between clenched teeth, “then I’ll just go.”

“You know where the door is.”

“That I do.”

 

April 2nd, 2015

He spends most of the next day expecting Fitz to come in any moment and for everything to go back to the way it had been before all of _this_ happened.

It’s a silly thought, one that he shouldn’t have even bothered wasting his time on, but he’s been missing Fitz for a while.

Somehow it had been easier to miss him when there was a hope of things going back to normal.

 

April 6th, 2015

“This is disgusting,” Mack grimaces, giving the coffee cup in his hand a look of disgust.

“I could have told you that,” Trip answers, “but you’re the one that demanded we get _Starbucks_ instead of just going across the street.”

There was no way he was going across the street.

Sure, he said that they could still be friends, and Mack meant that- he really had - but he was in no mood to watch Fitz making eyes at somebody else.

For that reason alone, Mack could stomach this terrible drink.

“How obvious would it be that I’m avoiding the place if I sent you over there to get our drinks?”

Trip grimaces. “Pretty obvious.”

“Yeah, I figured,” he agrees, taking another quick drink of his Starbuck latte, which, if anything, tastes even more bitter than before.

As much as he had tried to assure himself that he wasn’t going to get attached to the coffee shop across the street (Fitz was a whole different story), he couldn’t help the fact that his taste buds had become accustomed to the finer things in life.

“Do it anyways.”

 

April 8th, 2015

“You absolute asshole.”

“What did you do this time,” Mack asks of Lance, who is currently doing his best to look completely innocent while stuffing takeout into his mouth.

This wouldn’t be the first time one of his friend’s scorned lady friends interrupted their lunch time, but from what Mack had heard, the weird thing Lance had with Skye, had been going pretty well.

“Not him,” Skye says, “ _you._ ”

Honestly, Mack’s just surprised it took her this long.

“Oh that.”

“I thought you and Fitz were just fighting because he kept staring at his phone and making Siri check his messages. I mean, do you have any idea how annoying it is to have a robotic voice be like _no new messages_ every twenty minutes, pretty damn annoying,” Skye explains, “but it’d been a week so I tried to be casual and suggest that he talk to you and fix things, but apparently I missed the memo that my mutual friends had broken up,” this time her glare shifts from Mack to Lance for a moment, clearly displeased at him for not having told her, “and what the fuck is up with that in the first place?”

“It was mutual,” Mack insists.

“Bullshit,” Skye cuts in, “if it was mutual, then why does Fitz look like somebody killed his grandmother?”

Pointing out that “his grandmother’s already dead,” probably wasn’t the best response to that, but really, Mack wasn’t sure what else to say.

He had imagined that Fitz would be fine. Sure he had expected a bit of anger (mostly stemming from the fact that he wasn’t able to end things himself), but Mack did what he did for Fitz’s benefit. Fitz was supposed to be happier, not worrying or bothering to be concerned about somebody he had been dating, and instead able to focus his efforts on whatever was going on with him and Jemma.

“You really need to reevaluate your life choices,” Skye says, shaking her head, before turning to Lance, “and you need to be more giving of information if you want to continue being fuck buddies,” before storming out of the garage as quickly as she had come in.

Mack would have been more concerned about Lance’s comment of “is it weird that I’m turned on by that,” if he weren’t replaying all of the information Skye had unloaded onto him in his head.

 

April 10th, 2015

“Why do I feel bad about this?”

“Because you regret everything,” Bobbi replies, knocking her beer bottle into his for some pathetic attempt at a toast, “you know, if you’d asked me, I could have told you it was a bad idea.”

He grimaces. “I need to change which one of you two is on speed dial for my bad decisions.”

“Probably,” she agrees, “but you had a reason for doing what you did.”

“I was trying to help him by taking the decision away and not hindering his choices,” Mack says, “we spent the last month barely even talking, and-”

“You were jealous like a middle school girl?”

“Bobbi.”

Her half-hearted “sorry” doesn’t help at all.

 

April 16th, 2015

The Starbucks latte in his hand is bland and tasteless compared to his usual drink, though maybe that’s just the bitterness sinking in even more than it already was.

He hadn’t even realized it was possible to be more bitter than he already was.

Until he leaves the Starbucks and nearly runs into a vaguely familiar face - that of one _Doctor_ Jemma Simmons.

His standard apology dies on his lips at the sight of her, though she doesn’t appear to notice, apologizing profusely on her own, before catching sight of the coffee cup in his hand and lighting up.

“Oh thank god, I’m not the only one,” she says with a little giggle, “I mean, I had assumed I wasn’t the only one but-”

“I’m not following you,” Mack interrupts her, and for a second Jemma just blinks her wide eyes at him as though was the one not making any sense.

“Coffee,” she elaborates, “how we both prefer Starbucks.”

Her eyes flicker to the cup in his hand and Mack follows her gaze, before replying, “it’s alright.”

“Is that why you two had a row?”

“What?”

“The coffee, did you tell him that his is awful,” she asks, “I noticed he stopped talking about you lately, and it seems as though you must have had a row.”

“Ah yeah, _that_.”

She nods her head, taking his response as confirmation to her thoughts, “Then I’m glad I never mentioned how awful it was. I mean, if he’s going to get mad at his partner for pointing it out, who knows how mad he’d be at me!”

There’s too many things wrong with what she’s saying for him to focus on, but most clear among them is the fact that the woman he had always assumed to be competing with him for Fitz’s affections had just called Mack his _partner._

Jemma continues without him needing to say anything.

“I’ve been meaning to tell him. After all, I always thought it was a waste that somebody with multiple PhDs would quit NASA to go open up a coffee shop, but I figured after the accident he was having a midlife crisis.” She laughs a little at that, but Mack doesn’t feel like laughing in return. “I mean, I went off to Africa afterward, but Fitz was always the more level headed of the two of us and I was sure when he got offered the position at the University he was going to take it. But instead I come out here to find he’s opened up some coffee shop. It’s just not rational.”

“He’s happy,” Mack says, instantly coming to Fitz’s defense. Even though it’s been weeks since they’ve spoken to each other, there’s still an instinct in him to protect Fitz.

“Yes, well, happiness doesn’t bring home the bacon, now does it?”

“No, I suppose not,” Mack agrees, not sure how he ended up in this one sided conversation when he had clearly been intending to distance himself from this very figure as much as possible, “speaking of which, I need to get back to the shop.”

“Oh yes, yes of course, good luck with your mechanic thing!”

 

April 19th, 2015

He tells himself for two days that he’s not going to look it up, that Fitz had never mentioned it before when they had been together (except in vague half statements) and clearly he had never intended for Mack to find out.

Then Sunday rolls around and Mack’s not working, he reasons he has nothing better to do, and even the slow whir of his computer starting up isn’t enough to deter him from finding out.

As he types in Fitz’s name, he can’t help wondering why he never thought of this before.

When they first met he didn’t have a reason to, but there were signs afterwards that Fitz had been hiding something.

The PhDs should have been his first sign to go looking, but even the vague mentions of his accident or the dog tags Fitz never talked about wearing, should have been some sort of sign.

The name _Leopold Fitz_ and _NASA_ turns up pages upon pages of results, but the first place he begins is a news article detailing the infamous accident of May 13th.

April 20th, 2015

He gets coffee at T.A.H.I.T.I. the next day, because he wants to see Fitz, for the first time in weeks he wants to see the other man, but Fitz isn’t there.

Whether he’s hiding in the back or gone is unclear, and neither of the people behind the counter are willing to volunteer any sort of information on the matter.

But Mack’s used to a lack of information at this point.

 

April 22nd, 2015

There’s an alert on his phone that goes off just as he’s getting ready for bed.

Something he saved months before, when he was trying to keep up with Fitz’s need to be out on the beach for each and every astrological anomaly.

And it’s almost like fate presenting itself, because there’s one person he’s been wanting to talk to for the past few days, and instantly he knows where that person will be when the clock hits midnight.

He grabs his keys off the counter, hardly caring about the fact that he’s wearing gym shorts and barely even presentable.

 

April 23nd

“I didn’t expect to see you here. I can go find somewhere else to - if you’d like.”

“I actually knew you’d be here and planned this all with that in mind,” Mack admits, and though the lights are dim, he sees Fitz’s eyes widen in surprise.

“Did you now?”

“I think we need to talk,” Mack offers, patting the seat beside him.

For a second, Fitz hesitates, and Mack doesn’t think that he will take the seat, but eventually he does, lowering himself down into a cross-legged position. “We talked before.”

“Not properly,” Mack admits, “I’m beginning to think we never talked properly about any of this.”

Fitz doesn’t say anything for a moment, his eyes darting up to the stars above them, as though somehow they will answer all of the problems left between the two of them.

Mack lets him take his time.

He waits until Fitz makes a tight sighing noise and says, “I wish things could go back to the way they were,” before speaking up.

“I thought you told me wishing on stars was pointless.”

Fitz’s tone is much quieter when he agrees, “I did. I wish I hadn’t, but I did.”

Mack doesn’t know what to say to that, so he doesn’t say anything, but he looks up at the stars above them as well, searching for the same answers Fitz must be looking for.

“You told me you were in a car accident,” Mack says, casual, conversational, and watches out of the corner of his eye the way the Fitz freezes in horror.

“How did you- you found out?”

“I ran into that doctor of yours, she might have let something slip,” Mack mentions.

“And that - that is - would that be all she let slip?”

“No, it wasn’t.”

Fitz nods a little at that, and they slip into silence, with nothing but the sound of the waves crashing against the cliffs below to keep them company.

“You know, maybe we don’t need the stars to fix things,” Fitz continues eventually. “Maybe we could figure it out - between the two of us.”

“It wouldn’t be easy,” Mack says, “and we’d need to talk, be honest with each other, about a lot of things.”

“Like what happened to me,” Fitz’s asks hesitantly

“Yeah,” Mack nods, “but also about how I apparently get more jealous than a middle school girl.”

That startles a half-laugh out of Fitz, “what?”

“Bobbi’s words, not mine.”

“Skye called me a sad hipster.”

“Well you are-”

“Hey!”

There’s an almost genuine smile on Fitz’s face, and it’s weirdly comforting.

Mack never really realized how much he missed this until that moment.

“Do you think it’s too late to start over?”

“No,” Mack answers, quickly and honestly, “I don’t think it’s too late at all.”

“Good,” Fitz says, before turning towards Mack, and Mack follows a second later to mirror the action, staring in surprise at Fitz’s outstretched hand. “I’m Fitz, Doctor Leopold Fitz, actually. I like shooting stars, monkeys, and catchy pop music. My star sign is Leo. I was born in the year of the rabbit. My friends like to insist that I’m a Ravenclaw, but I always saw myself as more of a Hufflepuff. Currently, I’m the owner of a free trade coffee shop, though I used to be a weapons developer for NASA, though who knows where I’ll be in five years. Some say that I’m in the middle of a midlife crisis, but all I can think about is that I really miss kissing you.”

“What are you doing?”

“Reintroducing myself, now it’s your turn,” Fitz says, waving his hand about until Mack reaches forward to shake it, “introduce yourself.”

“I’m Mack, and I really miss kissing you too.”


	9. May

May 1st, 2015

They’ve been taking it slow, unbearably so.

It’s been a little over a weak since they ‘made peace’ with each other, and since then they’d been trying to work on the concept of being friends who were open and honest with each other.

So far that had involved one tell-all session under the stars (very much lacking in a makeout session), two lunch dates, and a lot of cold showers.

 _Far_ too many cold showers.

“It’s my birthday, and for my birthday I want you two to stop the weird ‘ _we were done fighting now so we’re pining after each other and having lunch dates thing_ ’ and go back to the having sex bit, because _somebody_ really needs to get laid.”

He’s really just glad that Fitz is off getting their drinks with Lance and not sitting around to hear Skye’s comment.

Of course he’s not _that_ lucky.

Skye had decided to invite everybody she knew out to the bar with them for her birthday celebration, which included but was not limited to Trip, Bobbi, _Doctor_ Jemma Simmons, and a good handful of Skye’s coworkers (one of which looked vaguely familiar and most certainly recognized him as the person Skye let in to hook up at the library after hours).

“That somebody is you,” Skye clarifies, as though Mack could have missed the memo. She’s clearly already had more than enough to drink, because when she reaches out to pat him on the shoulder she misses by a mile.

“Ew,” Jemma says, wrinkling her nose.

“You know, I’m going to agree with her on this,” Mack says, as much as it pains him, “I’m not having sex ‘in your honor.’”

“Party pooper,” Skye replies, sticking out her tongue at him, “I mean, _I_ am going to be having sex in my honor-”

“Ew, again.”

“-and everybody else might as well do the same.”

“First off, your birthday was technically a few days ago,” Mack points out, “and secondly, things are complicated right now.”

As he says that his eyes move around the bar, settling on where Fitz and Lance are with the next round of shots.

Fitz, upon noticing his gaze gives, him a little smile that shouldn’t leave Mack as conflicted as it does.

“Well, work on it faster, because the sexual tension is _literally_ killing me.”

“You’re not the only one.”

 

May 4th, 2015

“I’m an only child,” Fitz says, “my father left when I was young, I don’t remember him much, my mum won’t talk about him.”

“I’ve got a sister,” Mack offers in return. A truth for a truth.

“Oh, yeah? How’s that?”

“Awful,” Mack says, though his grin doesn’t match his words, “she would hate you.”

“What, why,” Fitz asks, his voice rising in pitch as his plastic fork slips from his fingers.

“Because you’re too perfect.”

At that Fitz snorts. “You really need to stop watching romcoms.”

 

May 5th, 2015

“Come watch the stars with me tonight?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“No - not really.”

 

May 7th, 2015

“I wanted to let you know that I was going out of town for a few days.”

“You didn’t have to tell me.”

“I - well, yes,” Fitz pauses, his eyebrows knitting together before he continues, “but I didn’t want you to worry, and we’ve agreed - we’re trying to - to talk more, and all that.”

“Have a safe trip,” Mack offers, not really sure what to say.

They’re still slowly putting things back together, being friends and all. As much as Mack wants to close the distance between them and give Fitz a goodbye kiss (or even just a hug) and reassure him that whatever’s worrying him will work out, but he can’t.

It’s one of the worst feelings in the world.

“I’ll do that - yes, sure - and I’ll text you when my flight lands - safe - if you want?”

“That’d be great.”

“Great! Great - great, I mean - right - I need to be packing,” Fitz rocks forward on his toes and for a second Mack thinks he’s going to bridge the gap between them, but then he shakes his head, and settles back solidly on his feet, “I’ll text you.”

 

May 8th, 2015

True to his word, Fitz texts the next morning. A simple ‘ _i hate airports’_ comes in before Mack has woken up, and by time lunch time has rolled around there’s another text in his inbox that says ‘ _u think airports on the other side of the country would suck less? they dont tbc._ ’

It makes Mack smile when the message comes in, and earns him a raised eyebrow from his only employee.

“Don’t say anything.”

“I’m not,” Trip replies quickly, “definitely thinking it but-”

“What did I just say?”

 

May 13th, 2015

He’s not sure what compels him to send the message.

A sense of guilt for having essentially cyberstalked the other man, a bit of concern because he’s spent the last few months with Fitz and knows just how badly he can beat himself up, or something entirely different.

But he does it, typing _‘Good luck today’_ and pressing send before he can even think about taking it back.

Less than a minute later a reply comes : _‘you have no idea how much i needed that.’_

 

May 16th, 2015

They text infrequently over the time that Fitz is gone.

It’s nothing special, but it makes the time seem to go by just a bit faster.

Which is why he may or may not have spent the day staring at his phone when he realized Fitz hadn’t texted him once.

However, his worry goes away at once, when a knock at his door foretells the fact that once again somebody has managed to make it past the complex’s lock system and up to Mack’s door without any difficulty.

He really should have known it would be Fitz standing on the other side of that door.  

“Hey, you’re back.”

Fitz nods at that quickly, before blurting out, “I should have kissed you before I left,” and moving to make good on his words.

A part of Mack knows that he should probably stop Fitz, that they were supposed to be taking it slow this time around, but it feels like it’s been far too long, and he can’t help himself from leaning down to meet the kiss, pushing Fitz back against the door as he does so.

All thoughts of stopping him turn into muted background noises, when Fitz’s hand slides between them to undo his fly.

“Fuck, I-”

“Yeah, that’d be the point.”

 

May 17th, 2015

For a moment, he wonders if the night before had even happened, but as the sun streams through his window, casting its light on the figure beside him, he knows it was real.

His vigil over the other man doesn’t last very long, and soon enough, Fitz is blinking up at him.

“That wasn’t a dream, then,” are the first words out of Fitz’s lips.

Mack can’t help himself from smiling in reply, “not last time I checked.”

“That’s, ah -” Fitz’s sleep smile falters a little bit.

“Good or bad,” Mack asks, “I promise not to take offense?”

Fitz makes some vague sleepy noise, but manages to sit up. “Do you still have that coffee machine I bought you?”

“Why would I not?”

He shrugs, before getting out of the bed, and instantly searching for the clothing that had been removed in a rush the night before, “come on, I’ll make you some - then we should - probably ought to - to, you know?”

“Talk?”

Fitz grimaces, “yes, that one.”

“Alright,” Mack draws out the word, pushing himself up from the bed as well, and grabbing a pair of gym shorts to quickly throw on.

He watches out of the corner of his eye, as Fitz tries to put his own outfit back together, managing his pant just fine, but his fingers faltering over the buttons on his shirt. They’re shaking in a way that tells of bad days to come, and he curses under his breath as he abandons the effort.

“Do you need help,” Mack offers trying to sound as casual as possible, but unable to miss the way Fitz’s hands stop shaking all at once, and the tips of his ears turn a bright red.

“I’m fine,” he says quickly, shirt abandoned half open, and already on his way out of the bedroom “I’m going to - I - we - you need coffee.”

By the time Mack has found a semi-clean shirt to wear, Fitz already has the coffee machine going, making noises at it similar to those he makes while talking to his phone. There’s something so perfect about the image of Fitz in his kitchen, walking around like he owns the place.

Mack doesn’t know what to say, so he doesn’t say anything. Unwilling to interrupt whatever Fitz is working on, he settles down onto one of his barstools, and waits until Fitz has set a mug of coffee before him.

“I’m sorry I came here last night,” Fitz says finally breaking the silence, “I mean, not sorry for - what we did was great - and I wanted that, of course - but I’m sorry for showing up at your door in the middle of the night like this is some sort of movie with anything close to a happy ending.”

“Fitz-”

“No, let me - just let me talk through this, please?”

Mack nods once.

“I came here last night - because the entire time I was being honored for my - my bloody valor - I kept thinking about you and - and how I ruined everything - how much I wanted to fix that, because god I - I should be able to fix something-”

He doesn’t continue for a moment, instead bringing a hand up to scrub at his forehead in a worrying way.

“Are you okay,” Mack asks, before grimacing at his own question. “Not emotionally, because obviously.”

“Obviously,” Fitz echoes.

“But, physically, you’re heads not bothering you is it?”

“No, no I don’t - I’m not. It’s not - that I - Mack, it’s been a year and I still don’t feel right,” Fitz says, finally dropping his hand from his forehead, “I - I thought that eventually things would sort themselves out, that I would feel normal again, but - it’s been a year. It’s been a whole _bloody_ year since my accident - and I’m not any better.”

“If I may,” Mack asks.

Fitz waves him on after a moment’s hesitation.

“I don’t know what you were like before your accident,” Mack admits, “and yeah, sometimes you’re a little off, a little weird, and I can imagine what it might have been like before. But you’re not broken. There’s nothing for you to fix.”

“You don’t have to lie to me.”

“I’m not,” Mack insists, “I wouldn’t. And sure, sometimes I wonder if that Fitz, the old one, would have gotten along with me, if we would be what we are now had the situation been different-”

“We would be,” Fitz interrupts.

“Right, but the thing is, I never met that guy,” Mack continues, “I met you, this Fitz, and he’s the one I fell in love with so-”

“ _What?_ ”

The words had been spilling so openly and honestly from his lips that Mack hadn’t even stopped to think about what he was saying, but now the words were out there and there was no denying that Mack meant it.

Not when he’d been feeling this way for months.

“You don’t have to say it back,” Mack insists quickly, “you can pretend I never said anything.”

“But did - did you mean it?”

There’s worry in his voice, nervousness that causes his tone to shake and Mack wants to reach across the space between them and reassure Fitz.

Instead he just says, “yes.”

“How long?”

“Since Christmas,” Mack admits, “you were standing on the rocks along the beach, while the waves were crashing around us. I knew right then that there was no going back.”

“I - oh - you’re really - you mean - are - oh god-”

“Don’t freak out.”

“I’m trying not to - it’s not the easiest thing in the world,” Fitz says, “you can’t just drop something like that on - on somebody when they’re not okay.”

“Right, shit, Fitz, sorry,” Mack scrambles for something to say, some way to take back the words that he most certainly means, if only because it would mean that Fitz wouldn’t be freaking out like this.

“You mean it though - really, truthfully?”

“I already answered that question.”

“I need you to say it again.”

“I love you.”

“God - you actually - why? Why me?”

“Do you want every detail or-”

“No, nevermind, I’m not ready - I can’t.”

“That’s okay,” Mack reassures him, before offering another “sorry.”

“Don’t be, please, don’t be,” Fitz says, and he does finally breach the space between them, his shaking hands coming up to grasp Mack’s.

Mack tightens his own fingers around Fitz’s in reassurance.

“You said before - you were tired of waiting for me to figure things - well, I figured - I’ve done a lot of figuring - and I - I really like you, but I don’t know if I - I’ve never - I don’t even know how to,” Fitz stutters, his grip iron tight now, “and you deserve somebody that doesn’t make you wait.”

“I don’t mind waiting,” Mack says, reassured in how honest the words feel as he says them, “I’m more than willing to wait for you.”

“Even if it’s forever? Because it might be - I’m not ready to - I don’t think - know if I ever will be,” Fitz admits, “and I know that - you should tell me to get out of here - I should, but I don’t want to. All I could think about - while I was gone - was you and how much I missed being - being whatever this is, but I can’t say what you want to hear.”

“I’m not expecting to hear anything,” Mack says, “the only thing I want is for you to be here.”

That gets the smallest of smiles out of Fitz, and it’s nothing proper, barely even there, but he’s not shaking anymore and that ought to count for something.

“You’re such a sap.”

 

May 18th, 2015

“Fucking _finally_.”

“Your commentary is not necessary.”

“It’s definitely necessary,” Skye insists, “seeing as it took you two months to figure out your problems.”

“It wasn’t that long,” Mack insists, ignoring the barista’s eye roll, and instead focusing on the slightly disgruntled man behind the counter, who keeps turning to look at Mack like he’s the greatest thing in the world, “right, Turbo?”

“Right.”

 

May 20th, 2015

“I’m happy for you,” Lance offers his own half-assed form of congratulations a few days later, “super grossed out that you’ve gone back to acting all domestic during our lunch hour but-”

“Shut up and eat your sandwich.”

“I’m shutting up, super grossed out, but-”

“We could make out in front of him,” Fitz offers. Just as Mack feels fingers brushing against his side, playfully pushing up the edge of his shirt in a way that could be nothing but deliberate jab at other person eating lunch with him, “or you know-”

“And there goes my appetite.”

 

May 26th, 2015

“Hey Mack,” Fitz says, in a slightly anxious tone.

“What’s up?”

“Could you - I’m having a bit of a bad day.”

“I’ve got some painkillers in my car,” Mack offers, suddenly shifting from casual to concerned, taking a quick assessment of Fitz’s features for some sign of his discomfort, “the extra strength ones, I can go grab them for you?

“Not that kind of bad day,” Fitz replies, his cheeks pink, “just one of the others - and I was wondering if we could - do you want to close up shop early for the day and come up to my place?”

“You know, I _think_ I could manage that.”

 

May 30th, 2015

“It’s so hot I’m going to die,” Fitz complains.

“You better not,” Mack insists, even as he watches Fitz stretch out, pushing the flimsy sheet that had been covering him off with a little ‘ _oops_.’

“I’d tell you to fuck me, but it’s too hot,” Fitz complains, “the east coast was never this bad.”

“Wasn’t it humid over there?”

The other man’s grimace is enough of an answer to that question, “make the heat stop.”

“No can do.”

“I hate this - this heat, and stupid Santa Barbara not believing in air conditioning - perfect weather my ass.”

“You know my apartment has an air conditioner, right?”

That catches Fitz’s attention, and a second later the man is up, sitting on top of Mack in a way that makes him want to do something very indecent.

“How have you not mentioned this sooner?”

“Uh, I don’t mind the weather?”

“You’re the worst.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: Santa Barbara really doesn't have air conditioners, or heating systems for that matter. This is because we have perfect weather, whereas the rest of you are stuck in a snowpocalypse.


	10. June

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize that it took me all month to update this, I got distracted by femslash february.

June 1st, 2015

“What are you plans for the summer?”

“You.”

“Ha ha, very funny,” Fitz says with a huff, before rolling over on top of Mack, “I’m serious, plans for the summer?”

“Sleep, relax by the beach, enjoy a cold beer, fix up that truck I bought last month,” Mack rattles off, before leaning up to meet Fitz’s lips, “and kiss you.”

“Those are good plans,” Fitz mumbles his reply back against Mack’s lips, “though really, all you want is kissing?”

“Well, not _just_ kissing.”

 

June 3rd, 2015

“I think I just got broken up with.”

“You can’t get broken up with if you’re just fuck buddies,” Mack points out.

“True, but-”

“Didn’t I warn you about getting attached?”

“Like you’re one to talk,” Lance rolls his eyes, “and it’s not my fault she got a job in Palo Alto. I mean, who would leave beautiful wonderful Santa Barbara for _Palo Alto._ There’s not even anything cool there.”

“Isn’t Google’s headquarters up there?

“You’re supposed to be making me feel better, not worse.”

“Sorry?”

 

June 13th, 2015

“Do you remember our graduation?”

“You mean the one that was ten years ago?”

“Don’t say it like that, it makes me feel old,” Lance objects, “I’m not that old, right?”

“You’re old. All of you are _that_ old,” Skye says, rolling her eyes at all of them, “now all you geezers crowd around and take a picture with me!”

 

June 14th, 2015

“I can’t thank you two enough for helping me move out, or I can’t thank Mack enough. Fitz, on the other hand-”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I am being incredibly helpful.”

Mack snorts. “You’re lying on the floor and critiquing our packing skills.”

“You know you like it,” Fitz teases, stretching out to poke Mack with his toes, “plus Skye’s floor is cold.”

“And now the truth comes out.”

 

June 17th, 2015

“This place is a ghost town,” Mack says, taking in the nearly empty coffee shop.

It reminds him of the first time he came here, so many months ago, when they were just starting off. The writing on the walls has been scrubbed clean. The couches, which normally look comforting and welcome, seem unnaturally bare. Even the music over the speaker system seems to be playing a solemn tune.

“Don’t remind me,” Fitz replies in a slightly clipped tone.

He’s standing behind the counter, though he’s forgone his apron because of the unbearable heat.

“It’s weird seeing you behind the counter again.”

“It’s weird being back here,” Fitz admits, “everyone else went home for the summer.”

“You just need to hire some summer students, then you can go back to hiding in the backroom,” Mack tells him.

“I was actually thinking of closing the shop for the summer.”

“You’re gonna to let me win that bet,” Mack says, his question only slightly laced with apprehension.

It seemed silly that all of _this_ started because of some stupid bet. A bet that Mack would be happy to lose, because the alternative would mean losing Fitz, and there was no way he could let that happen.

Fitz rolls his eyes. “Not a chance,” he informs Mack, “but I’ve got enough money saved up that the shop could take a summer break.”

“You’re going to miss the tourist crowd.”

That gets a response out of Fitz, instantly pulling a face that somehow manages to be offended and disgusted all at once. Mack probably shouldn’t find that as adorable as he does.

“Yes, because I’m clearly worried about _them_.”

 

June 20th, 2015

He’s underneath his latest project, the broken down truck that he’d bought with an intention to fix up, when somebody rolls under there to join him. Mack knew it was coming since a few moments before, the tell tale sound of the door to his garage opening, followed by the shuffling of feet, and somebody fiddling with Mack’s radio to change the channel.

“You’re going to get your sweater ruined,” Mack points out, before going back to work.

“I have others,” Fitz replies a second later.

They fall silent after that, Mack continuing his work.

Usually this is about the point where Fitz interrupts him, insists that it’s time for lunch or time for them to go home, or just chatters on about whatever is on his mind. Except this time he’s silent, which Mack takes as a cue to ask, “what’s up?”

“Not much, I - I just - wanted to be by you,” Fitz gets out after a moment, pressing his cold fingers up against Mack’s arm as if to prove his point.

That catches Mack’s attention, and he turns his eyes away from the underbody of his truck to look at Fitz. “You okay?”

“Yes- well, no - but I’ll be better. I took my medicine, I just need - need-”

“Do you need me to stop working? We can go back to your place or-”

“No, no, no,” Fitz cuts in quickly, “just keep working, please.”

“Uh, alright. Do you want me to explain what I’m doing?”

“I’m pretty sure I could - I know - what you’re doing. I’m a rocket scientist - remember?”

“Among other things.”

“I’m highly accomplished.”

“That you are.”

 

June 21st, 2015

“Tell me what you need?”

“Pain killers, soup,” Fitz lists off, “I’d say a nice - nice cup of coffee, but you can’t- the machine.”

“You should probably sleep anyways.”

“Probably,” he agrees, with a slightly pained groan that has Mack reaching forward to bring his hand softly toward Fitz’s forehead. “You could - should kiss me - kiss and make it better.”

“Yeah, I can do that, Turbo.”

 

June 23rd, 2015

“Who was that on the phone?”

“Nobody important, just my sister,” Mack answers, pressing a kiss into Fitz’s curls.

“The one that would hate me?”

“I had been joking about that,” Mack points out, for good measure.

“I know,” Fitz says, smirking up at him. “What’d she need?”

“Just wanted to wish me a happy birthday.”

That got Fitz’s attention all at once. In one second he immediately went from half-asleep and curled up in bed to alert. It’s the first time he’s looked so alert in days, which would have been considered a good thing in any other case but this.

He’s slightly worried by how excited and surprised Fitz looks upon hearing this. “It’s your birthday?”

“Uh, yeah?”

“Today?”

“Yeah, today.”

It’s then that his surprised expression moves to something a bit more cross, “Why didn’t you mention that sooner, so I had time to prepare or- or- anything?”

“It’s not that big of a deal,” Mack says with a shrug.

Fitz just scoffs at his side, “it’s a _huge_ deal.”

Mack grimaces. He’s never been a fan of the whole birthday thing. “We can go out and get drinks when you’re feeling better, call it a party or something.”

There’s another one of those scoffs in reply, but Fitz reaches out and tugs him down towards the bed in any case. “Remind me when I’m feeling better to make a big deal out of your birthday.”

 

June 25th, 2015

He had really hoped that Fitz had forgotten about the birthday thing, when he had woken up later that day he hadn’t mentioned it, and Mack was sure the topic had successfully been dropped.

Until they were eating dinner together, and Fitz brought it up again, “you forgot to remind me.”

“Sorry,” Mack offers half-heartedly.

“No, you’re no.”

“No, I’m not,” he agrees.

“I’m going to do something special, just wait.”

“I told you before, you don’t have to do anything.”

“I ruined your birthday,” Fitz says, frowning down into his food, “because I was sick - we couldn’t do anything.”

“Did you ever consider that I _liked_ spending the day in bed with you,” Mack asks.

“Nope,” Fitz replies cheekily.

 

June 26th, 2015

“You’re going to need to close down the garage next week.”

“And why’s that?”

“Because I have plans for you.”

“Is that right?”

 

June 28th, 2015

Mack had always known that Fitz was good at keeping secrets. He kept so much about himself bottled up, dropping Easter Eggs on occasion, but keeping it all very close to heart.

It was just that now those secrets directly involved Mack.

Every time Mack walked into the room Fitz would push his laptop closed, or suddenly say goodbye to whoever he was on the phone with. Whenever Mack tried to get some answer out of him, always asking in the most casual fashion possible, Fitz quickly shut him down.

“You’re going to ruin your surprise if you keep that up.”

“You know, Turbo, I’m not the biggest fan of surprises.”

“I promise you’ll like this surprise.”

“Am I ever going to find out what it is?”

“Tomorrow, probably,” Fitz says, “I’ll need you to pack before we hit the road.”

“We’re driving somewhere.”

“You are, I’m not - I don’t-”

“Right,” Mack nods, “you know I’m going to need to know where we’re going in order to drive us there.”

“It’s alright, I’ve got Siri with the GPS to guide us.”

Mack laughs at that. “I swear you love that phone more than me.”

He isn’t thinking when he says it, it’s nothing special - but he can’t miss the briefly pained look on Fitz’s face before he answers, “of course I do” with that little bitter laugh of his.

 

June 29th, 2015

“Don’t forget to pack socks.”

“Why would I forget to pack _socks_ ,” Mack asks, before stuffing two pairs into his suitcase for good measure.

Fitz, for his part, just shrugs his shoulders. “I don’t know, I always forget to pack socks.”

“You would.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing, Turbo, nothing at all.”

 

June 30th, 2015

It’s kind of nice.

Sure, Mack has no clue where he’s going other than Fitz’s vague comment of _‘as far north as you can before we stop at a hotel for the night,’_ but even so, the company is good.

He may not know the song that’s on the radio.

And he might not be a fan of having the air conditioning on full blast constantly.

But their hands are intertwined together on the center console and it’s _nice_.

“I could get used to this.”

“Being in a car,” Mack asks, turning his head slightly to look at Fitz.

Even though he knows a second later Fitz is going to remind him to keep his “eyes on the road.”

“I know, I know, eyes on the road,” Mack agrees, dragging his gaze away from Fitz, “but what is it, the thing you could get used to?”

“This,” Fitz says, and in a way it describes everything and nothing all at once.

“Hey, Turbo.”

“Yes?”

“I could get used to this too.”

 

 


	11. July

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woah, look how close we are to being done! Isn't that exciting! 
> 
> (Also did you notice that the amount of chapters increased? Yeah, there's going to be an epilogue.)

 

July 3rd, 2015

Their road trip lasts just the week, because Mack really can’t take _that_ much time away from the garage, and because Fitz gets fidgety when they’re in a car for too long.

But it’s nice.

One of the nicest things that he’s had happen for his birthday-or, well, belated birthday- in a while.

“Tell me you liked it,” Fitz says, when they’ve finally arrived back in home.

He’s got that wide eyed look on his face, a hint of stubble on his cheeks, and the sleeve of his tank top slipping down over his shoulder – he looks so perfect that there’s no way Mack could have denied any request of his even had he wanted to.

“I loved it.”

 

July 4th, 2015

“It’s an American pastime,” Lance explains, “and seeing as you two are my only friends, and those two are obligated to come because I’m not a dick-”

“But you really are,” Bobbi quips from her position, sprawled out on a beach towel.

“-just enjoy the drinks and the fireworks and the semi-subpar company.”

“I’m not sure whether to be insulted or not,” Fitz mumbles, but he takes the proffered beer from Mack’s hands.

“I think he was calling Bobbi subpar, and the doctor by association of suddenly being friends with Bobbi.”

“And with me,” Fitz points out.

“Right, but we’re the good part of the company,” Mack continues, “now come on, open your beer and let’s wait for the show to begin.”

“Is that happening any time soon, because honestly-“

He falls silent as the first of the fireworks light up the night sky, watching the ten minute warning before the show starts.

“Patience, Turbo.”

“You know, I’ve never been a fan of that concept much.”

“I’m sure I could think of a way for the time to go by faster.”

“Is that right?”

“I swear to god,” Lance’s voice cuts across the beach, interrupting their quiet conversation, “if you two start making out I’m leaving you here on the beach to walk home.”

“Wait, didn’t Mack drive us here?”

“I’ll have you know I am an excellent pickpocket.”

“Not something to brag about, Hunter.”

 

July 6th, 2015

“I thought you were keeping the café closed for the summer,” Mack asks, as he slips in the open door, without having to use his key, “not that I’m complaining in the slightest.”

“You better not be,” Fitz replies, “otherwise no coffee for you.”

“It’s a bit hot for coffee, Turbo.”

“Did you have something else in mind that could satisfy your thirst?”

“I might.”

“Is it ice tea,” Fitz asks, blinking his eyes in a faux-innocent way, “I know you Americans are very fond of your ice tea.”

 

July 8th, 2015

“You’re up late,” Mack says, pressing a kiss onto Fitz’s exposed shoulder, “working on anything exciting?”

“Just – just stuff for – work stuff,” Fitz stutters, his fingers stilling over the keys of the laptop he had somehow managed to fit into the bed with them, which really was an accomplishment since they were staying at Fitz’s place that night.

“You need any help?”

“Not with _this._ ”

 

July 11th, 2015

“You’re going to burn,” Mack warns Fitz, when the other man pushes the sunscreen away complaining about the _smell_ of all things.

“I’ll be fine,” he foolishly insists, as he tugs his shirt off over his shoulders.

Mack can’t help his eyes from following the movements, as though this was the first time he’d seen Fitz without his shirt on.

“You’re already getting pink,” Mack points out.

“That’s because you’re staring at me, not because of the sun.”

 

July 12th, 2015

“Please tell me you have aloe.”

Mack grimaces, “sorry, Turbo, I don’t get sunburnt.”

“You should go buy me aloe then,” he insists, poking at the red skin of his shoulders before grimacing, “a lifetime’s supply of aloe.”

“You know, I did warn you.”

“Yes, I know, foolish Fitz never listening,” he waves his hands dismissively, before turning to give Mack what is probably the most pathetic look that has ever adorned the other man’s face. “If you love me, you’ll go buy me aloe.”

“That’s cheating.”

“I know.”

 

July 14th, 2015

It’s weird how once he’s settled into this pleasant domestic bliss, that noticing things which seem slightly off become more apparent.

Nothing significant happens, there’s no car accident or screaming match at two am or any of the other things that had ruined other relationships in the past.

It was just the fact that something was off.

Mack noticed things.

The way Fitz didn’t stop by the garage as often as before, kept the café open some days even though he hated tourists, and seemed to be less willing to eat out than usual.

There was also the fact that every time Mack came in to see him, or whenever they slept over at Fitz’s place, the other man was inches away from his laptop, emailing somebody, though the screen would always be minimized before Mack could get a good look at it.

It was a bit like how things had been when Fitz had been planning his surprise birthday road trip, not concerning, just secretive.

It’s hard not to notice that something is up.

“Anything exciting?” Mack asks, upon finding Fitz once again hunched over his laptop after he used his key to let himself into the backroom of the café.

“Oh no – just news – trending on twitter – it’s nothing exciting,” Fitz says, quickly shutting the laptop.

“You sure you don’t want to finish that?”

“Not now that you’re here.”

When Fitz crosses the room to kiss him, all his wondering about who Fitz has been emailing and what he’s been working on disappears at once.

 

July 15th, 2015

“If you’re going to complain about your practically perfect relationship while I’m unbearably single, don’t even start,” Lance warns him as they go to grab lunch.

“I wasn’t going to.”

 

July 18th, 2015

“On a scale of one to drunk,” Fitz starts, but loses track of the sentence halfway through, and instead settles for stealing the beer bottle from Mack’s hand.

“How drunk are you,” Mack asks, when Fitz settles down into the sand next to him.  

“I don’t know, I can ask Siri, hold on,” he replies, but Mack stops him before he can grab his phone from his pocket and ask it to calculate his intoxication level.

“Yeah, I think you’ve had enough.”

“This is so messed up,” Fitz points out, but he lets to beer bottle be removed from his fingers easily enough, “first you cheat at Volleyball.”

“I didn’t cheat-“

“You and Bobbi are giants, your existence is cheating.”

 

July 23rd, 2015

He runs into Jemma Simmons, of all people, at the grocery store.

Mack had known she was around. There was that teaching position and a developing friendship with Bobbi that had started after Skye’s birthday party. Plus they had technically spent the Fourth in the general proximity of each other.

So seeing her standing in the frozen foods aisle wasn’t entirely surprising.

What was a bit surprising was the way the other woman lit up upon seeing him.

Vaguely, he remembers that this sort of situation has happened before, though they had been standing outside of a coffee shop then.

“I thought I saw you in the deli section earlier, but I couldn’t be too sure,” Jemma says, “but it’s so good to see you.”

“Same to you.”

“I had intended to stop by the shop sometime, Fitz’s that is, but I don’t exactly have a car, and he’s been so inconsistent in keeping it open,” she continues, “of course, when I found out why I was so happy.”

That leaves Mack confused for a second. As far as he knew, Fitz has been keeping the shop closed because he didn’t want to deal with summer tourists, though why the notion of that would make Jemma happy was completely lost on Mack.

He tries not to let his face show his confusion, and nods along as she continues talking.

“Oh, and you must be so proud of Fitz,” Jemma says, and not for the first time, Mack wonders how this woman seems to know everything before he does.

Instead of letting her spoil the surprise he just answers, “of course,” quickly before adding, “anyways, I really have to finish shopping.”

“Yes, yes, you do that,” she agrees, “oh, and before I forget, Fitz prefers the cinnamon cream cheese over the strawberry.”

 

July 24th, 2015

“Is there something we need to talk about?” Mack asks, as they’re lying together that night.

He hates himself for having to ask, hates how he’s already categorizing the delay in Fitz’s reply, or the way the other man’s body stills ever so slightly beside him.

Eventually Fitz just responds, “not yet.”

 

July 28th, 2015

If he knew anything about Fitz, it was that he felt most safe at night, with a blanket of stars above him.

Which is why Mack is not surprised that the moment Fitz finally decides to have that _talk_ is when they sit outside to watch the shooting stars from seats on the cliff’s edge.

“We don’t have to - to do this now if you don’t want to,” Fitz tells him.

“No, this is fine,” Mack reassures him, “I just want you to know, you’ve ruined me from ever being able to watch a meteor shower in peace. I don’t think I’m going to be able to look up at the stars without thinking of you.”

“You say that – but it’s not – it’s not a bad thing.”

“It’s not,” Mack agrees.

They fall silent again, for a brief moment, as the stars move above them.

But the moment doesn’t last nearly long enough. “I want to – to say all this now – before I can’t.”

“Right, go ahead.”

Fitz makes a pained noise,

“I’m just – maybe this was more of a – a taking the year off to discover myself and less of a midlife crisis.”

“Why do I have a bad feeling about that?” Mack asks, and at his question, Fitz shifts in his seat.

“Because you probably should,” Fitz admits sheepishly, “and this isn’t- I’m not saying that we should or shouldn’t do anything. I’ve just been thinking - about a lot of things really, and opportunities have come up.”

“So you’re planning on,” Mack starts, but he can’t bring himself to finish that sentence.

“I mean, I haven’t decided yet, haven’t given them my answer, but,” his voice trails off, “but you’re probably going to win that bet.”

He’s not sure what to say to that – honestly, he’s not sure what to say to any of this. There’s a billion ways he expected this conversation to go, but none of them were supposed to go this way.

“There’s a job – a teaching position that’s been offered to me.”

“Here?” Mack asks, and he can’t help the hopeful note in his voice, can’t help himself from wanting to know Fitz’d still be just around the corner, or even a few hours away. Mack could deal with a few hours away.

“Washington DC, actually.”

“That’s,” he can’t help that the first words that come to his mind are, “really far away.”

“Yeah, I know,” Fitz agrees.

He stays silent once more, because he wants to object, wants to tell Fitz to say here, and not go for it. Because there’s a part of him that’s selfish and afraid to lose the other man, but there’s another part of him that knows this is a wonderful opportunity. _This_ is the type of thing somebody as smart as Fitz should be doing. He was too good to just stay here and run a coffee shop.

Even if that was all Mack wanted him to do.

“You should take it.”

“What?”

“The job, you should take it,” Mack repeats, “it’s what you want to do, right?

“I guess.”

“Then it’s what you should be doing, and you’ll enjoy it more than being stuck here running a coffee shop.”

“I like it here,” Fitz says, his voice small.

“You should do what makes you happy,” Mack continues, “and if that means taking a job in Washington D.C., then you should take the job.”

“It’s a long ways away, that’s all.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, already feeling the awful tightness in his chest, “but that’s what Skype’s for.”

“I guess so.”

 

July 30th, 2015

The topic is dropped after that night.

It weighs heavy in the back of Mack’s mind, but Fitz doesn’t bring it up the next day, so he doesn’t say anything either.

Until they’re standing outside the coffee shop, Fitz fumbling with the keys to open the door, casually says, “the next apartment I get needs to have a keycard reader.”

 


	12. August

August 2nd, 2015

It becomes far too real when he comes into the kitchen in the morning to steal some of Fitz’s coffee, and finds the other man curled up on his couch with his laptop looking for apartments in D.C.

“Find anywhere nice yet?”

Fitz blinks up at him, and for a second, Mack’s taken back by the tired look in the other man’s eyes, before he responds with a “not yet.”

“I’m sure you’ll find something soon,” Mack replies, squeezing Fitz’s shoulder in a manner that’s supposed to be encouraging, even though he feels the opposite.

“Yeah, but nothing will ever be as nice as this.”

 

August 5th, 2015

“Long distance won’t be that bad,” Mack says, though he hardly believes the words as he says them.

“Trust me, mate, long distance is hell.”

“You’re supposed to make me feel better.”

“No, I’m supposed to eat overpriced knock-off Mexican food while making frowny faces in your general direction.”

 

August 9th, 2015

“Why do you have so many books?” Mack asks, picking up yet another copy of _Planet of the Apes,_ and shoving it into one of the boxes scattered around Fitz’s apartment.

If he had thought it was cramped before, this was a whole new level of cramped. With boxes covering most of the available space it was practically impossible for Mack to move around. Fitz, on the other hand, was somehow able to move about with ease, which was why he became in charge of snacks.

Or, more specifically, bagels.

“Because books are important,” Fitz retorts from the kitchen, “and I always feel bad throwing them away.”

“You could sell them,” Mack offers.

But he receives a snort in return from the other side of the apartment. “Oh, please, don’t be ridiculous.”

 

August 10th, 2015

“I can’t get out of bed. If I do, I’ll trip over your mess.”

“My mess is packed into boxes,” Fitz reminds him.

“Boxes that cover everywhere I need to step,” Mack objects, wrapping an arm around Fitz’s waist and tugging him back into the bed, “guess we’ll just have to stay in bed all day.”

“You know, I could be okay with that?”

“I had hoped so.”

 

August 12th, 2015

He’s never cared about meteor showers before Fitz, and he’s probably never going to sit out on the beach and watch one again – it’s weird how realizing that makes his chest feel tighter than ever.

Beside him, Fitz seems to feel the same, going on and on about how the city lights will make it impossible to see this while he’s in D.C.

“I’m going to miss the stars,” he says.

“I hope that’s not the only thing you’ll be missing.”

That gets a weak laugh out of Fitz, “I’ll miss you too, don’t worry.”

“Good,” Mack says, hoping his voice comes across as teasing rather than the melancholic way it sounds in his head.

In either case, it doesn’t matter, because neither of them say anything else for a while. instead they turn their eyes to the sky, watching the stars shoot across the sky.

And if he wishes upon those stars for some stupid selfish thing, it’s not like it matters – he and Fitz had both agreed long ago that wishing on stars didn’t lead to anything.

 

August 16th, 2015

Fitz says, “I’m going to miss this,” in the middle of sex.

And it takes every bit of Mack’s willpower to reply, “you know, I’m pretty sure they make things for that. We could hit up the adult store before you leave,” in the lightest tone imaginable.

“Shut up, you’re the worst.”

“You know you like it.”

“You wish.”

 

August 19th, 2015

“How does it feel to finally be an adult?”

“I’ve always been an adult,” Fitz says, rolling his eyes, “the rest of you just seem to have forgotten that.”

“It’s cause you’re so tiny, Turbo,” Mack says with a teasing smile on his lips.

“I am not the smallest one here,” he objects, gesturing to Jemma, who is currently pressed up against Bobbi’s side and not paying attention to anyone else.

“Doesn’t count,” Mack tells him, leaning down to kiss Fitz before he can bring up any more objections.

When he pulls back far too soon, Fitz follows him to kiss him one more time, lighter this time.

“We should hook up in the bathroom,” Fitz whispers against his lips when he breaks the kiss.

“You can’t wait until we get home?”

“It’s my _birthday,_ Mack,” he whines, “you’re not going to deny me on my _birthday_.”

 

August 20th, 2015

“Why do I feel so miserable?”

“Because you’re hung over from last night,” Mack offers, bringing his hand up to rub at the back of Fitz’s neck instinctively.

The smaller man melts into his touch, pushing back against his hand desperately, “I hope it goes away before my flight tomorrow, otherwise I’ll have to reschedule.”

Mack hates himself a little bit, for wishing that one of Fitz’s migraines would come on, if only so that they could spend more time together.

“Do you want some Advil?”

“Please.”

 

August 21st, 2015

The fact that there’s an airport in town has never seemed like such a bad thing before. Normally the worst of it is hearing the sound of a plane taking off or landing when he’s trying to sleep, but now he’s not sure he’s ever going to be able to enter this airport without feeling miserable again.

They’re standing on the curbside while Fitz has his phone read off his checklist to him, making sure that he has everything packed.

“Turbo, stop worrying, if you forget anything I’ll mail it to you,” Mack reassures him for the probably the fifth time, but it doesn’t do much to relieve the clear tension on the other man’s face.

“But I don’t want to forget anything,” Fitz explains. “It’ll be inconvenient.”

“Wouldn’t want that.”

“Don’t be bitter,” Fitz says, though he shoves the phone into his pocket all the same, and turns to look at Mack, “you told me you wouldn’t be bitter.”

“I said I wouldn’t be _sad,_ ” Mack corrects.   

Fitz lets out a sigh that indicates his clear annoyance before he drops his duffle bag down onto the curb.

“I’ll miss you,” he says, and the way he says it, Mack can almost imagine he’s saying the other three words that he wants to hear so badly.

“I’ll miss you too,” Mack replies, tugging Fitz forward to hold him close, as though this was going to be the last time he’d be able to do this.

In all honesty, it probably was.

He was under no illusion that long distance would work out.

Mack wasn’t the type of guy that people would carry out cross-country relationships for, and Fitz deserved somebody that could be there for him on his bad days.

“I’ll be back for Thanksgiving,” Fitz insists, “and then for winter break, maybe you could come visit the snow?”

“That sounds good, Turbo.”

“Mack-“

He doesn’t want to hear whatever Fitz is going to say, not when he’s got that concerned tone of voice, so he silences him with a press of his lips.

“I love you,” Mack says when he pulls back, but Fitz doesn’t echo his words, he just nods his head a bit. That’s probably the best he’s ever going to get. “You should probably go check your bags, you don’t want to miss your flight.”

“Right – I should – I’ll go do that,” Fitz nods, pulling back out of Mack’s arms to grab the duffle bag he had set down, “I’ll, uh, I’ll text you when I get there?”

 

August 22nd, 2015

Lance had confiscated his phone the second the two of them started drinking, warning Mack that he was not allowed to text Fitz while drunk.

Not that Mack would have done that.

Though now that it’s nearly three in the morning and the other man has passed out on Mack’s couch,  it’s too easy for Mack to steal his phone back.

There’s a voice in the back of his mind that says this is a bad idea, that _all of this_ is a bad idea.

Though he doesn’t acknowledge that voice until he opens his phone to Fitz’s contact and sees the latest incoming message ‘ _waking up without you in the morning is the worst_.’

His fingers feel numb as he types back ‘ _I miss you too.’_

 

August 26th, 2015

“Want to take bets on what’s gonna be there next?”

“I don’t care as long as it’s not another fucking coffee shop.”

“Somebody’s a little bitter?”

“Lance, don’t.”

“A little bitter, like how _coffee_ ’s bitter.”

“That was a terrible pun.”

“I’ve been saving that all month.”

 

August 28th, 2015

He finishes fixing up the truck.

It doesn’t feel nearly as satisfying as he thought it would when he’d originally bought the thing.

Though maybe that’s because there’s nobody else to share the accomplishment with.

 

August 30th, 2015

They hadn’t had time to talk.

He understands, Fitz is busy with moving and a new job and Mack’s – well Mack’s lying on his couch pretending to be interested in the _Jurassic Park_.

It doesn’t help that he can easily imagine every comment Fitz would make, how he’d point of the error and inaccuracies while digging his probably freezing toes in between Mack’s legs.

He’s not lonely, not at all.

Though that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t jump up the second his phone rings on the other side of the room, not so secretly hoping that it’s a _certain_ person calling him.

“Hey, you,” Mack says, when his hopes prove to be right.

And it’s such a relief when Fitz’s voice replies a second later with, “can I rant to you about how uncomfortable my hotel bed is?”

“This coming from the guy that living on a paper thin mattress in a glorified supply closet,” Mack teases, relieved at how easy it comes to converse like this with him.

“Excuse you, my apartment was just fine!”

“Yeah, sure it was Turbo, sure it was.”

 

August 31st, 2015

Looking at somebody through a webcam is nothing like being able to see them in person. He wants to reach out and tug Fitz towards him, but he can’t because there are thousands of miles in between them.

It’s better than the phone call from yesterday, because at least this time he can see Fitz – the bags under his eyes and the nervous way his hands can’t seem to settle in one place come across the connection – though what he sees worries him more than it should.

Mack listens to Fitz’s account and tour of his hotel, and complaints about nobody around there knowing how to make a decent cup of coffee. Though he notices that Fitz avoids talking about his work or anything too specific.

Which is why he ends up asking, “How are you settling in? Is your new job everything you’ve ever imagined?”

“Well – I’m not exactly settled – not yet anyways,” Fitz explains, “still haven’t found a place to live, obviously – and the office – I haven’t unpacked that either. It’s all boxes – so many boxes.

“Been too busy?”

“Something like that,” he agrees, “it’s different here, you know?”

“Tell me everything,” Mack says, even though he’s pretty sure he doesn’t want to hear about how awesome of a time Fitz is having on the other side of the country.

“It’s different,” Fitz repeats before elaborating, “nice, I suppose – but different – everything moves so fast, and I’m not sure – I’ll get used to it, eventually – probably, but I miss – I miss home.”

“I’m sure the homesickness will go away soon.”

“What if I don’t want it to?”

“Fitz-”

“I love you.”

He had wanted to hear those words for months, but whenever he had imagined hearing them it hadn’t been like this. And honestly, hearing them now, he’s not sure what to feel. He’s not sure what to say.

Fitz takes his silence the wrong way.

“I should have said that before – in person – I shouldn’t be doing this like this, but I – I had to tell you. Just in case – anything – I don’t want to lose you, because of this,” Fitz’s voice cracks, or maybe that’s just his laptop’s speakers, “I’m sorry I could say it before, but I love you.”

He’s still processing all of this, unsure of what to feel, slower than he probably should.

By time he’s finally figured out that he wants to say something, it’s too late, because Fitz is already frowning across the connection, “sorry, I’ll just- I shouldn’t have said anything - I’ll go now.”

“Wait, don’t-” he starts, but the connection is dropped before he can finish the sentence.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're seeing this note, it's because I haven't posted the epilogue yet. I'm busy with classes today, but it should be up within the next 24 hours! So keep an eye out for that and thanks for reading! :)


	13. Epilogue - September 8th, 2015

“Go outside.”

“It’s midnight,” Mack replies groggily into the phone in his hand, “or three am, where you are. Which reminds me, why exactly are you awake?”

“Go outside,” Fitz repeats, and Mack can clearly imagine how he’d look right as he says those words, in a familiar tone of voice that sets off a pang inside of him.

“I’m putting my money on meteor shower.”

“You want to bet on that,” Fitz asks, “I could have Siri make a note of it for us, or-“

“I hope you know I’m putting on pants purely so you won’t mention your love affair with your IOS ever again.”

“No promises,” he replies, before asking, “you are going outside, right?”

“Yes, I am, what did I ever tell you about patience, Turbo,” Mack says into the phone, “I’m at the door right now, ten seconds away from being outside and-“

Any other words he had been intending to say fall silent as he opens the door and reveals what – or who is standing on the other side.

He doesn’t have to listen to his phone anymore to hear Fitz’s voice, because he’s standing right across from him.

“I’m not dreaming, am I?”

“Not last time I checked,” Fitz replies, before moving towards Mack – or maybe it’s the other way around, Mack moving towards him – not that it matters either way because a second later they’re kissing.

And there’s no way he can deny this is real any longer.

He pulls back far too soon, and says the one thing that’s still plaguing his mind. “You’re supposed to be in D.C.”

“Fuck D.C.”

“Wow, Turbo,” he teases, “you’d real _fucked_ a whole city, even for you that’s a bit-“

“I turned down the job,” Fitz cuts him off. “I thought – I had wanted that, but it was lonely and I was miserable – and I wanted to be here – with you, even if that means not knowing what I’m doing with my life. That’s okay, because you’re here – and that’s what I want to be doing with my life. I mean – this was all so much clearer in my head – I even – I rehearsed it on the flight over, but now it’s getting all jumbled.”

“You’re staying here, then? There’s not a return flight scheduled in a few days?”

“I’m staying, for good,” Fitz nods, “though I’ll need to see if I can get my old place back - otherwise I’m – I’m technically homeless.”

“You can stay here, as long as you need.”

“Well, I was hoping you’d say that – here is exactly where I want to be, because I love you and I can’t stand being away from you.”

“I’m sorry, could you say that again?”

“I love you.”

They’re kissing again, a moment later, but it feels like the best thing they’ve ever done and as far as Mack’s concerned they should never stop kissing. In fact, they should probably be doing a whole lot more than kissing.

But, after what feels far too soon, Fitz does pull back, “oh, and Mack?”

“Yes?”

“I won the bet.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it guys, that's the end. 
> 
> There's a bunch of people I would like to thank here at the end, but I'll keep this short (much like the speech I will one day keep short when I win best screenplay at the academy awards). 
> 
> First off, a billion thanks to you. That's right /you/ dear reader, who may just be joining me now and reading all 50k+ of this at once, or who may have been along since the beginning and been like "wtf jess" with every twist and turn and long waiting period in between. I have enjoyed every one of the comments I received (even the ones shouting at me in all caps), every person who reblogged/liked my cliffs related posts on tumblr (find me @plinys), and every angry livetweet aimed in my direction (you know who you are). 
> 
> Secondly, (or well this should probably be first), two HUGE shout outs to my two amazing betas Carly and Rachelle (who are in that order for alphabetical reasons only). You wonderful ladies helped to make sure the plot was going smoothly, the words all went in the right order, and made wonderful comments all the time on my rough drafts. Such as introducing me to the fact that Rachelle didn't know what a bread bowl was (theyre delicious okay bro) or how Carly apparently had not realized you can literally look up the times of the tides online (wtf bro we live on the beach). Without you two this fic wouldn't have happened, or it would have, but it would have been a train wreck so thanks for saving this! Any mistakes in this fic are all on me, and not on them at all!
> 
> There was a third person I wanted to thank, probably the person that prompted the drabble that inspired this, but its been a long time and I can't remember who that was... So my third thank you (because three is a lucky number) goes to my laptop, for not dying on me. You the bae. 
> 
> Haha, okay, this has been fun. I hope you "enjoyed" the ride! 
> 
> xoxo, plinys


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